RWBY: JoJo Vento Aureo
by badliar 2312
Summary: [Fusion AU] One day, Jaune Giovanna meets his great-grandniece Summer Rose and her daughter Yang Xiao Long in his hometown of Niapoli, Mistral Kingdom. It kickstarts his adventure to achieve his dream and beyond in the bizarre world of Remnant that has Human-Grimm hybrids, Power-granting Arrowheads, and an ancient conspiracy that has existed since time immemorial.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the original sources which I used and changed as I see fit to make the stories which I publish in this here site.

 **Chapter 1**

 **I-The Golden Dark Pink Boy-I**

What could he say about the city of Niapoli? In comparison to all other cities in Mistral, it was unique due to how it is bordered in the east and west by nature. To the east lied the ocean with some beaches while to the west, a mountain range with peaks that ranged from one to five kilometers stood. As such, though the city was quite small in comparison to the capital, the city's climate is quite varied depending on which area of the city you were on.

Having been to the capital and the other cities in the Central Region of the Kingdom, he also knew that the style of the architecture was not that much different. Though compared to the many preserved ancient ruins located in the capital of Romulus, Niapoli had only a few, not enough to draw a major tourist attraction.

However, he could say with confidence that Niapoli was one of the best, if not _the_ best in Mistralian cuisine. Due to its close proximity to the neighboring Eastern Region of Mistral, Niapoli's cuisine was a mixture of food native to the region which is based on farmlands and the seafood-focused cuisine of East Mistral.

Still, as beautiful as the architecture was, as tasty as its native cuisine was, like any other places big enough to be called cities or even towns in Mistral, Niapoli hid a darker side to it, a face that none but those who had lived long enough in any of the cities would really know. Because while they would say that Mistral is a form of Republic, the representative in the senate and even up to the chancellor were in bed with the criminal elements of the kingdom.

But as he walked on the sidewalk that acted as the border between the land to his left and the sea to his right, the place almost felt like heaven. Perhaps had he lived a sheltered life full of comfort, he would think that this place _was_ heaven. It was a luxury that the world had decided it would take from him even before he could remember.

He, Jaune Giovanna, was just another person living their life to the best of their ability. This was something that had been drilled to him ever since he was four by the nuns of the orphanage he grew up in.

" _God will only help those who give their all in life."_ They used to say. Though kind, they were also strict and overbearing with what they viewed as them being compassionate. A word more apt to describe them would be 'Controlling'. They had the children's interest in mind... As long as it aligned with theirs.

Despite that, almost all of them were kind and some of them were wiser than most. No matter how much their religion tried to make its practitioners into monks or nuns, those who were old enough had become experienced in worldly things to be not just pious, but wise. The more controlling nuns were often the relatively young ones, the ones who did not experience the Great War and its immediate aftermath.

Live life to the best of your ability. No matter how bad things get, you must keep your calm, especially when everyone else panics. Having principles is a must, but don't get too hung up about it. These were some of the things he learned from the eldest nun, the mother superior, a very old woman who was a survivor of The Great War back when she was five.

He couldn't help but to smile at how the nuns had reacted when they found out or figured out what he was currently doing to live: The older ones had sighed but accepted that he had chosen his path like they had chosen theirs while the relatively younger ones had reprimanded him with heat that had quickly dissipated when he talked back to them.

When he left them back when he was twelve, he was out of their grasp. Since then, even the most controlling of them knew where he stood now, the people he was now a part of, and they knew that there was nothing they could truly do to him. Five years has passed since then, and things between him and them had gotten much better than when he was still a child...

"Excuse me, excuse me? That pretty blonde guy there?"

With a raised eyebrow, he stopped and turned his head to glance at the woman calling for him. There were two women smiling at him. From the relatively 'plain' clothes they wore down to the small purses they carried, he assumed they were tourists. "Yes? How can I help you?" Seeing that he didn't know them and vice versa, they must've approached him to ask something.

"Sorry, but do you know where the Giovanna Cathedral is?" One of the women said as she showed him the map of Niapoli. "A-and can you tell us where we are now as well? This is our first time here..."

"Sure. You're currently here." He pointed at the Laguna District, specifically at the Galius street where they were on now. "And Giovanna Cathedral is here." In the Blancocapella district, which was a bit far from where they were, a few kilometers to the north-west, "If you want to take the long, scenic route, I suggest taking the bus on the 9th route," Thankfully, the bus route is also printed on the map despite the fact that it didn't show _all_ the landmarks. "but if you want to get there faster, I'd suggest taking the taxi. The middle ground would be taking the monorail tram on the nearest station." He pointed at the 'Vespucci' train/tram station just two hundred meters from where they were.

"Ah, thank you so much." The woman said with a nod before she and the other woman whom he assumed to be her friend left and he too began to walk away toward the opposite direction from where the women were going... but only for a few feet before he stopped again.

He stood on the sidewalks while looking back at the two women who were now crossing the street on an intersection. '1...2...3...' He began to count up as he watched them, waiting for the right moment. Then, the two went left and out of his sight.

Another second passed and he saw three ladybugs flying out of the intersection where they left and smiled. The small red-and-black bugs landed on his right hand and crawled into his palm as he closed it into a fist.

"Now, let's see..." He lifted his right hand and examined the three 10,000 Lyren bills. "Hm. Not bad." He smiled. It was a well-deserved compensation in his opinion. Not too much to make them broke but definitely more than he needed to pay for today's lunch. Looking back at where the women disappeared, he sighed with a smile still on his face, "Really now, the saying 'Always keep your eyes to the front and back when in Mistral.' isn't just some anti-Mistralian propaganda." It was actually words of wisdom taught by older Mistralian to their kids sans the 'when in Mistral' part.

He was sure that they wouldn't miss it. From what he had seen in those purse of theirs, they had kept a lot of cash along with a lot of credit and debit cards as well. "I guess I'll loan that scorpion for the next thief who tries..." He pocketed his well-earned cash on his trousers and began to walk away. Even if he was a bit far from them, he could already smell the local restaurants spreading the taste of their goodness into the open air.

Being choosy about was not the way to go when it came to food. As long as it tasted good and was very filling, he would eat anything. Choosing one of the restaurants who sold their food on a stall, he approached one of the staff on standby and said; "Excuse me, may I have the-"

"E-eh? I-I can't find the money!"

He frowned and turned his head to the left. There was a kid in front of the cashier who was rummaging the pockets of his shorts. One glance at his body language, expression and his well-off clothing told him that it was genuine, he was not the kind of kid who would lie to get a free meal or dine and dash. A kid tourist who likely did not know to be careful around these parts.

"Kid, really? Don't lie to us."

"N-no, I really had it, my mom gave it to me and-!" The kid pulled the cloth inside his pockets as tears began to form, "I-I swear I had it...!"

"...Alright, go ahead and go over there, I'll wait until you find it." The owner was kinder than many who would just tell the kid to buzz off in harsher words.

He sighed and said to the cashier, "Excuse me, how much is it? I'll pay for him." He turned to the kid whose eyes and mouth were wide open and smiled, "How much did your mom give you?"

"T-two thousand Lyren sir..."

Sir? Whoever his parents were, they taught him well. It was not often that a kid as small as he was to be courteous to a stranger. Then again, he might have mistaken him as an adult, he _was_ much taller than most teenagers his age. He then turned to the cashier and said; "How much is it?"

"Seven hundred Lyren." Though the man's deep voice rumbled like thunder as he spoke, he saw a ghost of a smile on his face.

He took out the 10,000 Lyren bill and gave it to the man. He quickly exchanged it and gave him the change in four 2,000 Lyren bills, one 1,000 Lyren bill and three coins of 100 Lyren. "Here you go, 9,300 Lyren."

"Thank you." He then counted it off before giving the kid 1,300 Lyren in a bill and three coins. "Here you go."

The kid was still silent with mouth wide open even as he took the money. Then, the man gave him a plastic bag with a box that contained his food and said; "Here you go kiddo."

"A-ah! T-thank you." He said before taking it. He then turned to him and bowed, "Thank you sir! I-I swear I'll never forget this!" He said before he ran off.

Looking at the kid running with that bright eyes and wide smile, he couldn't help but to smile back. Thanks to him, the kid will have a good memory of this city. At least he hoped as much. "Hm." No matter, he did what felt right to him and that was the most important thing. He turned back and saw the man handling the cashier and some of his staff members were looking at him with smiles on their faces. "...Might I get a discount?"

He only intended that as a joke to break the awkwardness he felt. "Thirty percent only." The man said still with a smile and he couldn't help but to widen his eyes. "If I give every kind stranger visiting my store a discount I'd still be in the black for a whole month. What will you have?"

With a grin, he said, "Well... In that case I'll be eating a lot more than I planned." Kindness and courtesy must always be repaid in kind. Another wisdom that those old nuns imparted to him, one that he swore to follow no matter what. Kindness as a luxury in Mistral and thus they, as few as they were, must be repaid in full if not with interest.

He left the area carrying a couple of large plastic bags containing many boxes and went to a small open square near the harbor. Already it was packed but not with tourists or adults but with kids, children who lived on the street and slept in orphanages, playing a game of football while the others who weren't playing only watched or playing other games.

"Ah! It's Jaune!"

As soon as one of them yelled that and pointed at them, they stopped playing or doing whatever it was they were doing.

"Ah, Jaune, are those for us?"

"Everyone! Jaune brought us lunch!"

As the kids began to swarm over him, he raised his plastic bags and said; "Now now, calm down everyone! Line up, and you'll get your share!" He had enough lunch boxes to spare after all, but as always, these children must learn a form of discipline.

They followed his order. Sure, some of them fidgeted as they did so but they were kids, he expected that from them. "Right, good enough. Now, here you go, don't intrude the ones in front of you."

When he gave the lunch boxes to all of them, he was left with two, which he ate as he sat on the nearby benches along with the kids.

"Boss, hey Boss."

"Hm?" Glancing his eyes at the kid to his left calling for him in a low, hushed voice while keeping his head facing the front, he said; "What is it, Piero?" Piero was the leader of this small gang of kids due to his larger stature, his second-in-command for the surrounding district.

"I have somethin' that you might be interested in." He said while mimicking his posture and keeping his eyes to the front.

"Hm. Tell me all about it." Piero might look like a delinquent with his messy long hair and lack of presentable clothes as all of his clothes were hand-me-downs from other kids that were a bit bigger on him, but he wouldn't doubt the boy's competence and loyalty as his 'junior'.

If he said he had something he might be interested in, then he would listen.

"There's these two Hunts-uh... Huntswomen... Huntresses. One's an adult, tall as shit, wearing mostly white. The other's your age I think, a tiny bit shorter than the other one, blonde hair, red eyes... Wearing this weird clothes... I dunno what to call it. Both're really pretty though. They're staying at Clifton Hotel nearby, maybe they've been here since at least yesterday or even earlier. They've been looking around orphanages, asking folks about you. They only described you by your age, hair and eyes though, like they were only told about what you looked like."

He blinked and took a second of silence to prevent himself from frowning. "Hm." His heart beat a bit faster. Huntresses looking for him? Why? What would they want with a relatively low-profile criminal like him? "Have they gone to Saint Enrico's yet?"

"Not yet, I only heard it from the gossiping nuns from the other orphanages, but don't worry boss. Ain't no way we or the nuns would rat you out. Not to the cops or the Huntsmen." He could hear Piero grinning, "'nyway, you should be careful, kay? Huntsmen in cities always mean trouble, and those two... I dunno', I feel like they're more dangerous than any of the Huntsmen I've seen before. It's my instinct again, you know?"

He would keep that in mind. Piero's instinct was always good. "Is there anything else?"

"Well... There's a bit of bad news, boss. We found out yesterday that one of our own got hooked on the new one that's been being sold for a few months. We managed to stop'em before he got too gone tho'. He's healing now, the nuns're helping him out, they even want to send him to a doctor to de.. de-toxic him or something, getting the poison out of his body and shit. It's a close one, if we got to him even a week late, he woulda' been _far_ gone."

"I see." Another one fell to the darkness, but the silver lining was that he was caught before he got too far down into the ravine. "Grazie (Thanks), Piero." He took out some money from his trousers, his own money, 10,000 Lyren in total and gave it to Piero with quick, subtle move of his hand, "Treat yourself and your sister with some snacks later."

"Sure thing. Thanks boss."

When all was said and done and the kids began to play football again, he packed up the remaining trashes on the plastic bags and dumped them before he began to walk away. Now that he had lunch and Piero told him what he deemed as important, he needed to be moving again, 'Hm... Maybe I should go to the airport?' There were more opportunities there for him compared to the inner city area.

Living through the motions had been his way of living life for the most part. He had no set schedule every day other than somehow getting money to live by and he had plenty of options to do so. He had saved up some money as well in case of a rainy day and as long as he paid his dues, he'll have enough to live off of but as to what he wanted to be in life, there was only one thing he truly wanted to be, he had been dreaming of it for a bit more than a decade now and he was currently on a journey to get there.

All he needed to do was to work... While also wait for the opportunity to come knocking. In a place like Mistral, one could jump the ladder of a hierarchy with a single move if one was prepared and fortunate enough. In the meantime, he'll do as best as he could to not only further his dream, but also give back to the community and the people he deemed to be deserving of it.

He'd need to take the bus to go to the airport. More tourists there to scam and steal. To the nearest bus stop he began to walk, taking the usual rou-

A glimpse of something _very_ out of place was enough to make him stop. He then glanced to see if it wasn't just a mirage, that he wasn't hallucinating. '...What the hell?' He wasn't. It wasn't an illusion.

A girl was standing on the sidewalk across from the one he was on with her arms crossed as she stared at him. Long blonde hair in the same shade as his but messier, red eyes with slitted eyes, fair skin that seemed to glisten with a thin layer of sweat and her choice of clothing was one that seemed to be made with the purpose of 'drawing attention' in mind.

An orange leather jacket that only covered her upper back with form-fitting long sleeves left unbuttoned while wearing nothing but a black high-collared tube top beneath it, a pair of black tight shorts or even pants beneath a pair of slim orange chaps held together by pouched belt connected to an orange 'coattail' that reached to the ankles of her toned legs outlined by the tight chaps, a pair of what he could tell as genuine leather boots similar to cowboys of old to complement the leather chaps... And on her head was a green headband placed before her ears that kept her unruly hair slicked back and falling down to her hips.

She was quite a stunner with her revealing clothes and the way she seemed to be so at ease with it. Her red eyes were intimidating yet it also add to her beauty more so because of how intimidating it looked. It was as if he was looking at a demon, a devil, a seducer who flaunted herself like it's no big deal to distract and/or allure men and women alike... But all of those things were less important compared to what he was seeing above her.

A womanly golden spectre floating with its right hand on the right side of its hips and its left hand on top of its right shoulder was looking at him with its blank, pupil-less eyes. It was as tall and as muscled as she was with the same shape of abdominal musculature that the girl was showing off. Unlike the girl, it was armored to a degree.

The figure's 'armor' consisted of a pair of chrome plates shaped like a heart split into two that covered its large breasts, a heart-shaped chrome codpiece that covered its crotch and some heart-shaped chrome plates on its shoulders, hips, back of its hands and a pair of chrome sabatons with chrome kneepads in the shape of hearts. It was also wearing a black ancient-looking helmet with a shape reminiscent to that of a raven with a visor made out of golden glass-like material that looked like the upper beak of said bird. On its helmet were two pairs of purple cables that went down to the back of its neck.

His second-in-command's instinct was still as sharp as ever. Though he had only seen just this one to see the proof of how _dangerous_ she appeared, if Piero felt that _both_ of them were dangerous, then the other one, the one Piero said to be wearing all-white must have it too.

The power beyond Aura, the true manifestation of the soul, the spirit...

She grinned at him and he forced down the subconscious need for his body to twitch. He needed to keep calm, to stay cool, but what should he do? Why were these Huntress looking for him? He couldn't recall having done anything that warranted a Huntsman or a Huntress to look for him let alone two of them at once.

'I could run... But... Running away would exacerbate the problem.' He was ninety-percent sure that these Huntresses weren't looking for him because he had done a crime bad enough to warrant his arrest. All he ever did were petty crimes that could never be solved thanks to his power and it never involved killing anyone, so they must be looking for him because of... something else.

Not to mention that based on the girl's attire along with how the grin she had on her face as she looked at him reminded him of a hungry bird of prey, he presumed that she would chase him if he started to run.

Then he needed to face the problem upfront, confuse the enemy by taking the initiative and take control over the flow of events so that he could play this at his own pace. He blinked slowly, closing his eyes for a second as he run his right hand on his hair to the back and down to the short knotted braid resting behind his head, just below the base of his neck. 'Right... Here goes.' He took a big step forward to cross the street before she could make her move...

 **II-The Blonde Devil Huntress-II**

The city of Niapoli was different to what she was used to. When she first arrived here with her mother and saw the old architecture that clashed with the more modern ones, she realized how different each of the Four Kingdoms really were. Seeing it through Scroll TVs was one thing but being in the place, taking in the air, walking through its street and seeing its people was a different beast.

Even though it had only been a short time since she arrived, she really liked it. Vale might boast the fact that they had the most diverse population, but Mistral easily got them beat in architecture. It was a shame that she wasn't here to take a tour to see most if not all the attractions. A sanctioned mission this was not nor was she a Huntsman yet, but it was something that her mother had to see to, so she will be as professional as she possibly could.

On this second day of her trip, with her belly full of the breakfast she got at the hotel they were staying in and her mind alert after a short exercise, she walked around the Mistralian city in the early morning as ordered by her mother while she went for another run at the many orphanages around the city to look for him.

A boy her age with fair complexion, blonde hair and eyes that could be either blue, purple or red was the person they were looking for. The description was not much to go on, but it was all they had on his appearance. They knew his family name but considering that he had been left behind by his mother, knowing his family name was **useless**. Still, another factor to find him was in play, one that could easily identify him and she was fully intent on using it to find him.

" _ **[Speed Queen]...**_ "

It came out with her whispered summoning, the sheer manifestation of the power she was born with, the one her mother called as a _**[Stand]**_... A power that the one they were looking for possessed as well.

Keeping it floating behind her, she continued to walk. While her eyes focused on what's ahead, Speed Queen looked around to see if anyone reacted. Most of them did not, which was unsurprising. Even from her family's side, only her mother could see it and that was because she too had her own Stand.

From what her mother had told her, it was likely that the one they were seeking also had one as well, similar to her in that he was also born with it. Thus, it was a no-brainer that showing off her Stand would draw his attention. It was a beacon for him, a lighthouse that would turn his sight to her.

'Where-where-where are you~?' She smiled as she continued to walk. The hunt was on and truth be told, she wanted to meet this guy. Considering just _who_ his father was, he was also family in a bizarre way. Considering his father's relation to her mother, she supposed she could call him 'great-great-granduncle'... And that's despite the fact that he didn't look and wasn't that much older than her. Still, it was definitely not the weirdest thing she ever heard, not with how much her mother told her of her adventures, especially the one where her mother and her great-grandfather went on a journey around Remnant to go to Vacuo.

A trip to Niapoli to essentially walk around the city was far from _that_ particular adventure but she didn't expect this trip to become like that in the first place... She wouldn't mind a bit of escalation though.

Any public areas where Speed Queen would stand out if it were visible was her hunting ground. She needed to take her time. It was likely that he didn't know that he was being hunted. If he was evil, then she could catch him by surprise.

'...Huh, this building is older than the kingdom?' Giovanna Cathedral predated the city of Niapoli and Mistral by a few hundred years, the first construct made out of stone back when the houses of the village that surrounded it were made out of wood. The people of the village that would become Niapoli were religious and the Cathedral was once used as both a place to pray and a shelter in case of a Grimm incursion. It held the title of the biggest building in Niapoli for hundreds of years before it was beaten by modern ones.

The Cathedral was named after the first daughter of the very first head priest who was also the head of the village. The husband and wife were part of a group of Proto-Huntsmen and he named the building after the child that they lost to the Grimm. The words 'Dedicated to our beloved Giovanna' were inscribed to the plaque that stood at the entrance. Even now, the name was popular to be used by parents for either their sons or daughters as their middle name.

She couldn't help but to smile. A piece of ancient history in a world that had lost a number of them, remnants of what existed before Dust, before the Grimm, before... Before everything that made the world the way they were now. It was a tourist attraction, sure, but that didn't mean that it wasn't meaningful. With a lighter heart, she moved on to find another one.

In the context of her mission, public areas also meant 'tourist attractions'. A little sightseeing wouldn't hurt and with Speed Queen, she could cover a lot more distance if need be. She had planned her route: From the northwestern side of the city, she would then go toward the east. There were a lot of things to see and she would take her time while keeping Speed Queen out.

With two pairs of eyes, she wandered the city, taking in what the city had to offer. It was a city rich with history that, at its earliest part, predated the concept of Four Kingdoms. Hell, she found out that this city is only considered a part of Mistral because Romulus, the capital city of the kingdom, conquered it through occupying them with their army.

Here was a history lesson she preferred: Walking in it and taking them all in at her own pace. Reading a school textbook was always a chore but this? This was more... _her_. She could learn things faster when she could _experience_ it, stepping into the thick of it was much better than reading bland texts written by people who weren't there to experience whatever they've written themselves.

From the mountains in the west to the sea in the east, the city of Niapoli was a treat. The place almost felt like heaven to her, especially now that she stood behind the railings that directly faced the sea to the east.

She stretched her arms up, "Nnnnnnn~" moaning as she vibrated a bit. "Ah~ Such a nice place..." The sun was almost at the top of the sky's 'dome' and already she had finished her tour. Though she hadn't seen the guy, it was a couple of hours well spent. "Hmmmm~" Rubbing her toned stomach, she grinned, "I guess it's about that time, huh?"

Feeling the initial stages of hungriness, she began to look around for food, of which there were quite plenty. Speed Queen was still floating behind her, ever vigilant as she kept her eyes straight forward. Eating food in the place where it came from was a different experience, especially when she compared its taste to the ones from the chain stores in Vale.

The people who lived here knew the recipes and passed them down to their family and as such, there was a taste of its history within the food. The experience and knowledge that were passed from one family member to another resulted in something that no chain stores that sold similar food could match. Then, the environment also added to the flavor, making it even tastier either from the freshness of the ingredients or the atmosphere of the area.

Drawn by the smell of food being cooked, she began to wander again, taking her time as she wasn't feeling all that hungry yet. Everything looked promising and she wanted to try something new and not the spaghetti she had with her mother yesterd-

She stopped. Through Speed Queen's eyes, she saw _him_. Fair complexion, blonde hair the same shade as hers and eyes colored in regal purple. Though the combination was only uncommon, there were other things that drew her attention.

His blonde hair was slicked back and was long enough that its knotted braid went past his neck. She found him quite handsome with his boyish features that lacked baby fat and his calm expression that was complemented with the intense gaze of his eyes. He was tall, maybe six feet five inches (195 centimeters) if she had to guess and the clothes he wore also showed that he was _quite_ muscled.

He had a frame that was midway between 'bulky' and 'lean' and his clothes provided the outline, the silhouette of his musculature, quite well. He wore a form of long-sleeved, high-collared zip-up jacket colored in _**dark pink**_ with _**gold**_ lines and diagonal checkered pattern on the bottom part of his jacket's 'tail'. He had it zipped up all the way to the bottom part of the big heart-shaped opening that showed the cleavage of his muscled chest and upper abs. Said jacket is decorated with golden wings on the rigid collars, golden metallic cuffs on the wrists and three protruding red-and-black ladybug emblems, two on where his nipples would be and the last one on where his belly button would be, connected to the zipline. Compared to his long-sleeved jacket, his similarly-colored pants and golden leather shoes were rather ordinary.

There was something about him that went beyond the physical description of what the person they were looking for look like, something that drew her attention more than just his choice of clothes. Was this him? Was this the one she and her mother were here to find? She turned to face him and crossed her arms.

He took a sudden stop, remained there for a second and then glanced at her... At Speed Queen... And she couldn't help but to grin back. She found him, what a _great_ coincidence. She called off Speed Queen after a job well done. Now, she should call for her mother to come and-

Her gloved hands twitched as he suddenly walked toward her. His back was straight, his eyes were directed to the front and meeting her own, his pace was neither slow nor hurried and he didn't even cross his arms or put his hands in the pocket of his trousers, keeping it to his sides without moving them too much or making a pair of fists with them. Smooth, calm, cool and collected. He wasn't any normal guy.

He stopped a few feet in front of her without even once breaking eye contact. She hated the fact that she had to tilt her head up a bit in such close proximity to meet his eyes thanks to her inferior height of 5 feet 10 inches (178 centimeters) but held her indignation down to appear as calm as he was.

She knew what he was doing though. He was trying to take over the flow of things, to put things under his control. Well, that's not going to happen. "Hey there buddyyyy!" She stepped closer to him, put her right arm around his shoulders and pulled him down a bit, "I've been looking all over for ya~! Don't just go off on your own like that~!"

Looking at him, she saw him blink once as his expression remained blank, but it lasted only for a second before he then smiled and put his arm around _her_ shoulders as well, "I've been looking for you too. Hey, have you had lunch yet? I lost you for a while there so I already had one myself."

He had a very good poker face, he could adapt to a situation fast even though he didn't make it himself and already he made an attempt to steer the situation to his advantage. She was very tempted to take the steering wheel back... But that small hungriness had become a void that she couldn't ignore. "Aw man, you already had lunch? Oh well, I hope you don't mind just watching me eat. Let's go to that restaurant we always go to."

She could allow him to take the lead for now. If he tried anything funny, then she would change tactics and introduce his face to Speed Queen's fist.

The restaurant he took her to was nearby. She looked at the list of food on the menu given to her for a second before she glanced at him again; "...So what would you recommend?" She wasn't the one who had lived in the city for years and though she couldn't trust him much yet, she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"If you like something creamy, the Carbonara here is very good. If you want something lighter, I'd suggest anything that has tomato sauce, they're all from nearby farms so they're fresh. But if you're really hungry, order the pizza or the lasagna. I hear Huntsmen have to eat a lot on any given day."

"Well I _am_ feeling rather famished. Alright then, I'll have a pizza and you can share it with me. What pizza do you like?"

"The 'Pescato del Giorno'. Guaranteed fresh fish native to Napoli caught today put into the pizza. The fish is actually put onto the pizza _after_ the pizza is already cooked in the oven so that it retains its fresh taste. It tastes really good with the mozzarella."

"Huh, that sounds like sashimi on a pizza... Alright." She shrugged and decided that will be her lunch. She liked her meat either raw or as close to raw as possible anyway, even fishes.

After ordering that and their drinks of a cup of hot Cappuccino for him and some iced green tea for her, she saw that he was once again looking at her. His gaze was very intense yet his face betrayed nothing of his thoughts and feelings... She liked it, being mysterious suit him.

"So I suppose I should start..." Considering that he hadn't been very forthcoming and why should he be with the way she revealed herself, she needed to show him that she and her mother only wanted to meet him. She started by extending a hand, her right one, toward him. "My name's Yang Xiao Long. It's nice to meet you."

He looked at the hand offered for a second, glanced back at her for a moment and only afterward did he raise his right hand and moved it to meet hers. "Jaune Giovanna. Pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure's all mine, Jaune." She couldn't help but to grin. Indeed it was hers. After all, she found out his name. Jaune Giovanna, huh? She pulled back her hand as she said. "That last name, is it taken from that famous Cathedral?" Or was it perhaps from the name of the dead girl the Cathedral is dedicated to?

"Yes." He said with a nod, "I'm assuming you already know that I'm an orphan?"

Ah, so he already knew about her from somewhere. "...Yeah." She nodded. "Did you already know who I am before I even introduced myself?"

"I only know that you're a Huntsman looking for me. I didn't know your name before you told me yourself." He then raised his right hand up a bit with his palm facing her, "And before you ask, yes, I do have informants."

Could he be speaking literally or was it his Stand ability? For now, she'll have to wait until she could get to the bottom of it. "So... Why Giovanna?"

At that, he smiled. "Nuns often give family names based on religious figures or concepts to orphans who don't know their own roots. They gave me 'Giovanna' based on the Cathedral and the daughter it's dedicated to."

"I see... Then what about your first name?" She was prying too much, she knew that, but she had to doubly make sure.

"...Whoever left me behind left me only a couple of things in the basket I was on, including a piece of paper with that name written on it. The nuns decided that it was to be my name." He really was the one they were looking for. "Did my parents... send you here for me?"

"No." She shook her head. After all, both his parents were dead. A good riddance to one and a pity for the other, "I'm actually... accompanying someone who also wants to meet you. She's actually the one who initiates this, I'm just following along."

"I see."

...That lack of surprise in his tone. Though he had a good poker face, his response was too fast, lacking any pauses to give an impression that he didn't know she didn't come to the city alone. "You already know that I came here with someone, didn't you?"

He nodded and she let out a sigh. She didn't have as high of a higher ground as she thought. But still, she's willing to bet that he didn't know _why_ she and her mother were so interested in him. "Well, do you know _why_ we're looking for you? And just so we're clear, we're not here to arrest you or anything like that." It was an easy bait, now to wait for his reaction.

"Oh? I don't recall ever having done something to warrant an arrest by Huntsmen."

Not even a blink, a flinch or a twitch. Steady as a rock, she respected him more by the second. To choose his words carefully to basically say 'I've done crimes but not ones big enough to get people like you to chase me' and say it with a straight face took balls of steel. "Glad to hear that. If you're offended with me implying that you're a criminal and all -"

"Stereotypes are often exaggerated truth." He said with a smile, "Being a native to Mistral, I know the truth and I took no offense to what you were implying. I've seen more than enough examples of what you were going for."

Orphans in Mistral would grow up to become a criminal, such was the stereotype spread to non-Mistralian. While it might sound like a bad stereotype, it happened more often than not to turn it into one in the first place. There were historical records of organized crime members who grew up as orphans so it wasn't too much of a lie.

"But you _are_ one, aren't you?" Pretty words came out of his mouth but they didn't manage to distract her. She quickly raised her hand a bit, "Relax. As I said, my mother and I aren't here to arrest you. We're just... trying to find you, s'all." And now here she was, talking to him. She _really_ needed to report to her mother about this.

"But for what?" He cut to the heart of the matter. "Why are you trying to look for me if not to arrest me?" His eyes narrowed, his intense gaze multiplied several fold as he said, "...That power you showed before... Is that the reason why?"

Now they were going toward a straighter path instead of the winding road beforehand. "That's one of the few reasons we have, yes. Do you know what it is? Allow me to clue you in: It's not exactly a Semblance."

"It's more than a reflection, I know that much." He said as he leaned forward, placing down his forearms and elbows onto the table, "Though I have named it myself, I will admit that I lack the knowledge of the proper term to use for it. Until today, I have never seen anyone else's but my own."

So he didn't even know what it was. That meant that he had learned how to use it by himself to the point of giving it a name unlike her, who had the fortune to have a mother who also had one herself, one whose type was very similar to her own... "...The power has a name of its own.I too have a name for the one I have, one that I gave myself, but the general term for the power is _**[Stand].**_ "

"I see..." he nodded, "Stand... is it?" There was a small, almost unnoticeable ghost of a smile on his face. "Hm. Is it a manifestation of Aura or something else entirely?"

"Hm..." Explaining the connection between Aura and Stand was not something that she would do justice... But she could try. "A Stand is... Well, Aura is basically the power of the soul manifested by the body, yeah? A Stand is the power of the soul manifested by the mind. They're two branches of the same tree."

"I see..."

Looking at him as he nodded, she couldn't help but to feel as if he was just asking to confirm what he had suspected all along. She couldn't help but to feel a bit... inferior compared to him. "That's my take on it anyway. My companion... will be able to explain that better if you want to ask more about it. Still...I have shown you mine, so will you show me yours, Jaune?"

She met his intense gaze with her own and everything fell silent as he leaned back a bit against his chair. She needed to see him manifesting his Stand out into the open. She wanted to see what it looked like and then learn what it could do.

"...We should put that on hold until _after_ I meet your companion." The smile on his face was as warm and genuine as it was controlled and practiced, "For now, let's have lunch. Speaking of which, it should be coming right about... now."

"Excuse me, here are your orders, sir, madam."

...Was it because she was hungry or the pizza really smelled that good? Now that she was so close to it, she couldn't stop the void in her stomach from growling. She grimaced and said; "Thank you." The waitress put down the pizza and their beverages down and once she saw what it looked like, she decided that seeing his Stand could wait.

Thanks to her hungriness, the pizza was eaten in record time. Though she bought the size that is meant for three to four people, she easily ate at least three person's share as he didn't eat all that much. Then again, he said that he already ate some lunch, so...

"Where are you taking me now, hm?" She kept her eyes on him as she walked beside him through the city's streets. Her belly has been filled with a tasty lunch that he recommended and as such, she will let him take the lead.

"Somewhere where we won't be seen or heard. Though our power isn't exactly visible to many others, talking about it in such a public area doesn't fill me with confidence." He then turned to glance at her and said; "Though if I'm right... Perhaps the other Huntress will be there as well."

...He's talking about one of the orphanages. "Ah!" The sound of her Scroll ringing caught her off guard as she pulled it out of her pouches. It was an audio-only call from her mother, she pressed the green-colored icon to answer and pressed the Scroll to her right ear. "Hello?"

" _Hello Yang~"_ she heard her mother's chipper voice reaching her ear, _"how's your trip around the city? Niapoli is quite beautiful, isn't it?"_

"Heh, yes, it is..." She glanced at Jaune, who was now standing beside her, no doubt eavesdropping on their conversation. She didn't even hear him move. "How's your search going?"

" _Well... I think I may have found a lead but the nuns were being flighty about it. There's something they don't want to tell me, something they know. How about you? Found anything while you were walking around?"_

"I might have..." Looking at the man in question, his expression remained as stoic as ever. Very impressive poker face, she had to admit. "Which orphanage was it?"

" _Saint Enrico's. I think we should meet up and talk about how we're going to approach this. The nuns aren't very forthcoming, even compared to all the other ones. I don't think it's just because I'm a Huntress though... It's very possible that this is the orphanage that Maria left him on."_

Only then there was a change in his expression. His eyes widened, his mouth opened up a bit. It must've been the name. Maria, his mother's name... "Yeah, um... We _really_ have to meet up."

There was silence then as her mother seemed to have dropped out of the call. She kept her phone close to her ear as she could hear the sound from the other side even though her moher was being sile- _"He's with you, isn't he? You've found him and he's there with you. Give him the phone, Yang."_

She couldn't disobey her when she changed her tone into _that_. She did as she's told and though he looked surprised, he took the phone and put it into his ear without a moment of hesitance. "Hello." His voice didn't even crack, how could he be so controlled?

Now, it was her turn to eavesdrop, _"Hello to you too. My name's Josephine, Josephine J. Rose... But please, call me Summer instead."_

Her mother's tone changed into something softer, though not as motherly or friendly as before. There was wariness, that much she could hear from her and also a sense of... melancholy. It was as if she's happy to finally hear him but she couldn't help but to feel sad about something.

"...My name's Jaune. Jaune Giovanna. Miss Summer, let me cut to the chase, why have you and your companion been looking for me?"

" _Well... Do you believe in destiny, Jaune?"_

...That was a bizarre way to start her explanation. "...To a degree, Miss Summer. But how does that come into play here?" As expected, he didn't even seem fazed by what her mother just said.

" _Because it has been destined that you and I, even you and Yang, would be connected to each other, either by blood or by spirit or even both."_ Well, that was one way to say that he was family. _"And it's important that we meet. By the way, do you know who your parents are, Jaune?"_

"No. I can't say that I know them." Not even a blink. Either he had made his peace with it long ago or he simply did not give a damn about them.

" _Then it's important that we meet at once and rectify that. Stay where you are, I am currently using Yang's phone as a homing device."_ Wow, so meeting him was more important than she thought. _"Keep my daughter company for a while, I won't be long."_

"Very well." He then cut off the connection and gave the Scroll back to her, "Is Summer her Courtesy Name, by any chance?"

"Yup." It was an old tradition originated from Mistral to be given or give oneself another name upon one's coming of age as a sign that one has experienced much to have changed from the person they once were. From what she had been told, her mother received it during their journey to Vacuo, a hell of a coming of age event.

"...Hm."

"'Hm' what, hm?" She knew that there was something he realized.

"As I recall, getting or giving a Courtesy Name is a discontinued practice. However, there are cases in which the person chose to have one for personal reasons. For someone to use it must mean they have gone through some... extraordinary hardship."

...Extraordinary was an understatement. Though the fact that he got to the right conclusion within seconds after her telling him was worthy of respect. "By the way..." He crossed his arms as he looked at her, "How long do you estimate your mother to get here? Saint Enrico's not exactly nearby."

"Well it's been almost a minute, so she should get here in about..."

"I'm here."

Her mother's voice was quiet yet it was so near. Turning to look at what's behind her, she saw her, the long-haired redhead that was her mother herself, standing just a few feet away from her with her arms on the pockets of her white pantsuit and she smiled. As always, whenever her mother said she won't be long, she truly won't be long. Not even a full minute has passed since she called her.

Her mother's clothes, like her own, is designed to draw attention though it wasn't as... 'provoking' as hers. Where she chose to show off her body a bit, her mother chose to stand out without showing off a lot of skin. Where she chose the color orange combined with black to her design, her mother chose to use white with red. White long coat with high, rigid collar and form-fitting sleeves that reached down to her ankles equipped with only one button near the bottom of the neck that exposed the lower part of the red turtleneck shirt she was wearing beneath it.

"Jaune Giovanna, yes?" Her mother's pink high-heeled leather shoes echoed against the concrete sidewalk as she walked toward him. She then took out her right hand, showing one part of the pair of studded white fingerless gloves she wore and extended it toward him even before she was halfway from reaching him. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

For a moment there he just stared at her with widened eyes. She smiled, knowing that he didn't expect her to be so _fast_. Then, his eyes went back to how it was before as he smiled. "Miss Summer Rose, I presume?" He said as he took and shook the extended hand. Standing close to one another, her mother, who was taller than her at six feet three inches, is still dwarfed by Jaune. "I hope you're having a good time here in Niapoli." Oh the cheek of him to smile and say something like that as if he was a native talking to a mere tourist.

"Oh the city is wonderful~!" Her mother was more than willing to play along though as she gripped her hand quite tightly, "The architecture is beautiful, the people are nice for the most part, as expected of a Central Mistralian city, especially with Niapoli being a coast city. It's not as famous as Venuzia, but Venuzia doesn't have a mountain range, so that's one point for Niapoli."

"Indeed. Not to mention that we aren't the one being consumed by the sea by the second." And now he was even willing to banter a bit. "Shall we talk somewhere else? Your daughter Yang has told me quite a bit, but there are much more that she would rather defer to you."

She nodded and with a grin, she said; "Have you ever been to Clifton's? The room service is quite excellent."

 **III-Jaune Giovanna-III**

Clifton Hotel in Niapoli was one amongst a series of hotels that shared the same brand. Like its other counterparts in the other parts of the world, it was a five-star hotel with many amenities and facilities for its guests to use from a high-class hotel staples like swimming pool and gym to a section of the building dedicated for a casino.

He had worked 'legitimately' in the hotel for a while before. There were a lot of opportunities waiting to be made, to be exploited. No one would look twice at the bellboy when he did his job as he's supposed to and more. He had made quite a bit of money from his paycheck, the tips from the rich, generous guests and the 'tips' he made for himself.

In this kind of hotel, the guests were the type that would not mind missing money as long as it was in a 'small' amount. Relatively small. What seemed 'small' for the frequent guests of hotels in the same caliber as Clifton's were big deals for the average people. When he had gotten and saved enough from his job, he quit, saying that he had gotten enough labor experience.

Now here he was again on the other side of the coin, walking the halls and entering the elevator as a guest. "...You are very well-paid as a Huntress." He knew that the average one didn't. It was just a job, and like any other job, one could only be paid in accordance to how much one's service is valued. "Usually, a Huntsman or a Huntress on a mission would stay on much cheaper hotels than this. Sometimes they would even use local inns or even motels."

This was no Huntsman/Huntress business. Someone, a big, rich entity, perhaps one that had a lot of influence too, was backing her up. Summer Rose... Who was she really? And why all these expenses just to meet him?

"Well, I'm not exactly paying for this from my own pocket. To be honest, when I decided to take this along with Yang, I was also thinking of getting a couple of days of nice vacation, so..." The woman shrugged with a grin that lit up the elevator, "Two birds with one stone as the saying goes." She said with a wink.

...He turned to Yang and saw her nodding with a smile of her own. He couldn't help but to sigh and closed his eyes as his lips formed a smile. Though the two were a bit secretive in regards to almost everything save for wanting to talk to him about his family, there was something he felt about them that he couldn't disregard, a feeling that told him they were genuine and meant him no harm.

So he remained silent and followed them to the topmost floor of the hotel and into the room he knew as the penthouse. The woman in white entered first, opening the door with the card key she had before she then opened the double doors and kept them open with her arms outstretched, "Welcome welcome, come on in~" The woman said.

The penthouse was still as grand as he remembered. It is the equivalent of a small two-story house with two bedrooms and two bathrooms complete with a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a big closet space and a balcony that had the view of the sea. "Please excuse my intrusion..."

Following the older woman's lead led him to sitting on the sofa in the living room. With a grunt, Yang took a spot on the sofa to his left as Summer grabbed one of the leather chairs and dragged it so that it was right across from him.

With only a coffee table made out of an intricately carved fine mahogany acting as a buffer between them, the woman sat down, leaned back and said... "Well now... where should I start...?"

The question wasn't really directed at him. He could see that she was a bit lost now that she got him here. Though she was still smiling, it no longer reached her eyes... "Perhaps you can start with what you meant when we talked on the phone. What did you mean we are destined to meet?"

The woman in white let out a sigh, "Good grief, you're quite blunt. But I suppose there's no use beating around the bush... Very well then." She then straightened her back before leaning forward a bit, "I said that because... through some twisted bizarre destiny, we are family."

...He deciphered as much from her cryptic statement when he spoke to her on the phone. "Really? What are you to me?" The woman still looked quite youthful but Aura tended to keep its user at their prime for as long as it could, with the stronger ones being capable of maintaining their youth for longer compared to the average ones. She could be his aunt or perhaps even his mother...

"Well, technically speaking, I'm your great-grandniece."

...Hm. He was only seventeen years old while the woman was clearly an adult old enough to have a teenage daughter... Yet he could see no deceit in her eyes, no lie in her tone of voice. But how could that be true? "...Can you please explain?" He felt the heat in his heart creeping up to reach his head. No, he needed to keep calm.

The older woman let out another sigh, "And that's the crux of the matter... It's kind of hard to pinpoint _where_ I should start... Our family, you see, has a long history behind it, going back for at least a hundred years. And it all started by the feud between our ancestor Jonathan Joestar and his step-brother, Dio Brando."

He then watched as she put her hand into the inside of her coat, "Telling you the details of _that_ story would take a long time and I don't think that's the right place to start so for now..." She took out a portrait and put it down on the coffee table, "Here you go."

Taking the photo, he could feel the age in the material. However, the color has not faded in the slightest, showing that it's well-preserved. It depicted a blonde-haired blue-eyed woman all on her own looking at the camera with the backdrop of a blank blue wall.

His breath hitched a bit as he took in her features. She was beautiful, heart-shaped face, cute small nose and full pink lips that stretched to make a most beatific smile... It was almost like a mirror to how he used to look back when he was a kid, before his puberty started and he became taller and more masculine. "...This is... my mother, I assume?"

He glanced at Summer and the woman nodded, "Maria Arc. She..." He could feel his heart beating against his rib cage at how the woman took a moment to take a breath and sigh, "I only met her a couple of times. I know her younger sister Jeanne better as we went to Signal Academy together. I only became Maria's acquaintance through her sister and last I heard about her was when I was sixteen, when she disappeared out of the blue."

Her gaze become a bit glazed then, "Though I felt sorry for Jeanne and her parents at the time, I didn't think too much of it, especially when things... a _lot_ of things... happened not long after that that Maria's disappearance just slipped my mind. It doesn't help that Jeanne would later choose to marry early and move out to live in the Frontiers while I went to Beacon to finish my Huntsman education and then afterwards, I've become so busy as I got a lot of responsibilities on my shoulders and..."

She shook her head and let out a rather explosive sigh, "...To make a long story short, the latest thing I heard of Maria after that was two weeks ago when Jeanne called me for her funeral. Apparently, she came back to her parents' home after disappearing for a year and worked things out with them. She died helping her parents repel a Grimm incursion. I heard the cause was severe Aura exhaustion."

Though he cast his head down to the floor, he wasn't truly looking at anything or even _seeing_ anything. "...I see." For a moment there, while he looked at the photo of his mother in his hand, he felt... hopeful. He never could put a face to what his mother looked like as the only photo she had ever left was...

"However." Her strong tone pulled him out from the haze of his thoughts, "Jeanne didn't call me just to invite me to the wake. Before she died, she told her parents that... That she wanted to see her son again. From what I heard from them, she was rather delirious. All she said was that she wanted to see you, she wanted to go to Mistral and... and she said your name. She called your name and also... she said that she was sorry for leaving you."

He gripped his fists. He wanted to pulverize something, destroy something, he wanted to scream, to cry... But he couldn't lose control, not now, it wouldn't help anything. But really? 'Sorry'? Why? If she regretted what she did, why did she just leave him to live and grow up in an orphanage in the first place?

"During the funeral, Jeanne asked me to look into the matter as a favor to her and I did. I had the resources to find you and... I also found something along the way that made this a matter of _my own_ family as well." Her gaze became very intense as she met his eyes and said; "It has something to do with your father."

...So it was his father... His mother might have started Summer's investigation, but it was his father's involvement that made this personal to her. "What is he to you?"

"...He was my enemy." The coldness in her voice... Such a contrast to how warm she had been before, "Nineteen years ago, he came back to life. But we didn't know about it until two years later, when he caused a lot of trouble and grief to my family. My grandfather and I had to stop him and... We lost a lot of our friends along the way."

...There were five words in what she said that immediately caught his attention. Five simple words that stood out like a big black scab on a fair skin. "I'm sorry but did you say he... came back to life?" Like a zombie? A vampire? Though he didn't know much about Grimm, was there such a Grimm that could do that to the dead or the living?

"...Yes, I did." She nodded as her expression became the most grim and serious he had ever seen her show so far, "Your father's name is Dio Brando. The same one who had a feud with our ancestor Jonathan Joestar, the one who took Jonathan's body and made it his. After he was retrieved from the ocean's depths nineteen years ago, he began to roam the world for two years before staying in Vacuo. Seventeen years ago, during those two years, he... made you... using our ancestor's body."

...He could feel his fingers shaking. His hands were sweaty, his knees felt weak and his arms felt heavy. That couldn't be true. It couldn't. It just couldn't...! But her eyes, her tone of voice... She knew the tells to look for when someone lied and she didn't show _any_ of them. She was speaking the truth and nothing but the truth.

He gulped. This... this was the hardest pill he had to swallow, bar none. Knowing that his parents left him behind for some reason that was beyond him left a bitter taste in his mouth, knowing that his mother died wanting to meet him and regretted what she did tasted bitter in his mouth and felt heavy in his stomach, but this...? It not only tasted bitter, and weighed heavily in his gut, it also made him feel sick, feverish to the point his sweat was cold.

But he had to calm down. He had to swallow this pill no matter what. And to make the process easier, he had to remain calm and continue asking, "...What manner of creature is my father supposed to be?" An immortal, body-snatching creature... was his father. What did that make him?

"...There were these artifacts once. They were found only in the depths of The Wilds, guarded by the strongest and the most lethal of the Grimm. All of them takes the form of _**[a mask made out of stone]**_ , complete with a human-like face with protruding fangs on the lips... These artifacts have the capability to infuse a person with the essence of Grimm and force the body to fuse with it. All it takes is to put on the mask, give it a drop of your blood and the mask will pierce your brain and inject the Grimm essence into the wearer. The result of such a process is called a Wergrim. Predators of the dark. They are much stronger than humans, even the ones who had their Aura unlocked, they can regenerate almost _all_ of their body parts faster than lizards can grow their tail back to the point of being able to restore lost limbs, they have the capability to control their bodies down to their molecular make-up, making their bodies lethal weapons and they can live through anything as long as their brain is intact. And unlike the Grimm, they are drawn to humans not just because they want to kill them, but because they _have to eat them_ to satisfy their hunger and become stronger."

...One bitter pills after another must he swallow down. Yet, he had to continue on. He, Jaune Giovanna, must not shy away from the truth even if they were difficult to swallow! So his father was a monster, but... He still needed to know _everything_. So for now, he will keep silent.

"George Joestar, Jonathan's father, had one of these artifacts in his home. He used to be a Huntsman before he became a successful businessman and he took one of the artifacts as both a trophy and to keep it safe. He kept it locked away mind you, but Dio found out. Though George adopted him out of kindness and treated him like he was his son by blood, Dio was always jealous of his step-brother who was as good if not better than he was at everything. When he discovered what it was and how it worked, he used it himself and killed his step-father despite the fact that George Joestar loved him as much as he did his own son by blood. This was the escalation that turned their feud bloody."

Then, despite what she just told him, he saw her smiling, one that reached her eyes, "Jonathan Joestar... was born a noble. And by that, I mean he's a noble and a _noble man_. Do you understand the difference?"

He nodded. By blood, Jonathan Joestar was a noble and his character and personality was that of a gentleman. "Yes. Please continue." He wanted to hear more about both of them, both the evil Dio and the noble Jonathan.

She nodded, "Despite seeing him turning into a Wergrim and not even knowing what a Wergrim was, Jonathan fought him. With some tricks and a bit of luck, he managed to defeat Dio by burning his house down and impaling him with a statue. Then, after he recuperated during the night, he returned to his burnt home in the morning and found only one thing survived unharmed. The fire destroyed the safe it was on, but it remained whole: _**[An ancient arrowhead made out of material not from the planet].**_ "

Hearing the story was like hearing a folktale or a myth of old. It might be a lie, it might be the truth, it might be wrapping the truth with lies to make it more palatable, whatever the case may be, the story itself was something worth paying attention to. He couldn't take his mind off of it, nor his eyes from her, not even for a second.

"When Jonathan was scrubbing through the rubble, it sliced off his index finger. What happened next came gradually. At first, he felt nothing so he just sucked on the blood and moved on. However, minutes passed and he started to feel strange. His body began to sprout off these _**[purple vines]**_ riddled with _**[small, sharp thorns and leaves as golden as the sun].**_ The arrow granted him power similar to ours. It was his Stand... _**[Passion Gold]**_."

...What? "...Passion... Gold...?" Could it be a coincidence that the name of this noble man's Stand with whom he shared his bloodline with was quite close to the name he gave his own Stand? But what the woman said about destiny... Not to mention the depiction of the Stand's appearance. There must be more to it than just mere happenstance...

"...Before Jonathan even awakened his Stand, he had unlocked his Aura. However, the power of his Semblance was a mystery to him... Until the arrowhead manifested it into a Stand. It had the power to synchronize his energy and the sun's own, to synthesize its sheer energy made it his. It was far more effective than any plant on this planet ever could and..." Laughter like the sound of a small bell tinkling came out of her mouth, "My grandfather said that Jonathan's friend, Speedwagon, said it made him into some sort of _**[Sunshine Superman]**_ whenever he used it."

"...Speedwagon?" It was not an unfamiliar name to his ears. Everyone in the world who were above twelve _must_ know the name of one of the largest and most profitable energy company in the world for having found _**[Oil]**_ , an alternative energy to Dust that is both plentiful and easy to process. And considering how far back this story went... "The same person who built Speedwagon Incorporated?"

"Yup. Robert E.O. Speedwagon was Jonathan's friend. Back then, he was still just a hood thug with a lot of connections though. From the stories my grandfather told me, he and Jonathan had a fight before they made up due to Jonathan's nobility impressing him so much that he turned over a new leaf."

From rags to riches, a story of a man who is inspired by the nobility of man... This man, Jonathan Joestar, helped a man rise into greatness, a multi-billionaire businessman who, with his Foundation, helped quite a lot of people in the world, including quite a number of people in Mistral.

The more he heard, the more he wanted to know. "I see... then, what happened?"

The woman nodded, "Well, they didn't even have time to stop and rest because then they found out that Dio lost the battle in the fire but was still alive. Speedwagon was there to assist him in hunting him down and was even there to see the two of them fight again. Speedwagon told my grandfather that the battle was like seeing an act of god, like two natural forces going at it. Dio had been recuperating since the fire and since then, he had consumed a lot of people for the inevitable rematch while Jonathan had time to learn about his Stand and like Dio, he had been gathering up power as well, but from the sun."

"...Then who won?" If he was conceived from Dio Brando using Jonathan Joestar's body, then...

"Jonathan won. The power he accumulated through his Stand was beyond Dio's Wergrim power, even as augmented as he was. Jonathan then moved on, rebuilt his mansion, married his childhood friend and went to a honeymoon on a cruise ship... One that only his wife came back from. Dio survived the last battle as just a head and waited for his moment to strike when they are at their most vulnerable, when they let their guard down. My grandfather told me that his grandmother, Erina Joestar, only managed to survive because Jonathan gave her the opportunity to. He spent his last moments fighting off Dio who had fatally wounded him. He took down the ship and Dio with him... But even then, Dio survived... It was then, at the bottom of the ocean, that he took Jonathan's body and made it his."

Even after everything, the man turned monster didn't go down. He tilted his head down, taking in the kind of man his father was. "...And then many years later, he came back up and he met my mother. Somehow, she... fell in love with him? Or did he rape her?" Only one possibility seemed plausible enough after what he just heard.

At that question, the woman sitting in front of him sighed as she frowned, "I don't know... Your mother never revealed any of this to anyone until she was on her deathbed so no one knows for certain. But... If it makes you feel any better, I think it could be either way."

"...How so?"

"DIO was the kind of man who would use people for his own gain and then throw them away once he's done with them. However... there are certain people who he will be respectful and even affectionate to. I know many of his loyal subordinates who served him willingly out of respect for him and he even reciprocated the sentiment for some of them. And in a twisted way, him using Jonathan's body is also a form of respect. If your mother was just a fling to him, if he just used her for pleasure... She wouldn't have let her live afterward, I think. Whatever happened between the two might be more than just a black-or-white thing."

"But all that you just said about him..." She had been telling him the story of how evil Dio Brando was, and now she was defending him?

"...He was my enemy, yes. And I won't sugarcoat the atrocities he committed. But even so, there are certain sides of him that I can't deny are good, even noble to a degree. And the bizarre thing was, Maria never gotten married when she came back. Whether it's because she genuinely loved your father or that she was traumatized by the experience, I do not know... But I guess we'll never know the full truth about their relationship."

He sighed and nodded. Indeed, the two people involved in the affair were dead now. Even though one possibility felt like the most likely to be true, he didn't know about them personally to make a right judgment about the true nature of their relationship. "...Thank you for telling me the story of my..." With his mind's eye, he saw a glimpse of the silver lining in the whole mess and he couldn't help but to smile "My two fathers." He wasn't fully the son of Dio Brando after all. Jonathan Joestar was also his father, the kind and noble man.

The woman's smile was wide as she nodded, "You're welcome." Then she sighed, "I'm sorry if I was a bit blunt there, but... I had a feeling you wouldn't appreciate me sugarcoating things."

He wouldn't. Sugarcoating what his father did in an effort to make it easier for him to digest wouldn't make him happy as he would know she was hiding something from him. Though hearing the stark truth was by no means pleasant, he'd rather have that rather than be fed hollow lies. Truth, above all else, was paramount, no matter how distasteful it was.

"And as for your mother's side of the family... Well, their history goes back further than our own but I don't know much of it. They'd like to meet you, you know? We're not going to force you to take a trip to Vale to see them now, but if you'd like..." She reached into her coat and took out a calling card, "You can contact them at your leisure."

He took it, looked at the numbers written on it and nodded. It might not be today, tomorrow or even the next day, but he will call them. "Thank you." He sighed as he took out his wallet and unfolded it to keep the card there... And stopped at the sight of the photo he had kept inside his wallet. "...Miss Summer..." He put the card inside one of the wallet's empty pockets before he carefully took the photo out and placed it on the coffee table, "This is my father, yes?" He knew that it was, but he had to be doubly sure that-

A gasp coming from his left prompted him to turn his head. Yang's eyes were wide as she saw the photo. Had she never seen-?

"Where did you get that photo?" Hearing Summer's voice, he turned back and saw that the woman's eyes were narrowed as she took the photo and examined it. "...This is him, yes. Dio Brando... But who took this photo?"

"...I think it was my mother." The nuns had been kind enough to not only keep it when he was given to them but to also show him when he was five. The photo showed a man's naked back as he turned his head to the left, glancing at the camera over his left shoulder while he crossed his arms. The lighting was dim enough to shroud parts of his face in darkness, leaving only his long blonde hair and his red eyes visible.

On his left shoulder was a mark, one that helped the nuns know the man was his father... A mark that existed on the body of the man that Dio Brando took over the body from... "Miss Summer... Do you have that mark as well?"

Her silver eyes seemed to glow as she looked him in the eye. He watched as she slowly put the photo back on the coffee table, unbuttoned her coat and pulled the collar of her turtleneck shirt to stretch left.

There it was on the same spot, the mark of a five-pointed star colored in black that somehow occurred naturally. Though he had yet to touch it, he knew that it would feel smooth, as if it was not a blemish or a strange protrusion on her skin.

He zipped down the zipper of his jacket down to the ladybug emblem and then with his left hand, he pulled the left side of the jacket further left. "Miss Summer, this mark... It is the proof of our bloodline, yes? The mark of the Joestar bloodline."

"Indeed..." With a sigh, she took her hand off her shirt's collar, letting it cover her neck again while he zipped up his jacket. "Good grief... I didn't expect you to have a photo of him..." She then looked at him again, her gaze was sharp as if she was trying to see through the stoic mask he had been wearing but he couldn't sense suspicion in the way she looked at him. Her eyes were filled with... "...What did you think about your father before all of this, Jaune?"

Before he knew the truth? "...Hm... Miss Summer, to tell you the truth, I didn't have much to say about my father _or_ my mother before this. The nuns in Saint Enrico's were honest with me when I asked them how I got there. They said that I was put on their doorstep, tucked with a blanket inside a basket with a paper that has my name on it and a photo of my father. After that, I thought that whoever they were, they must've not cared about me enough to raise me themselves and overtime, I made peace with that thought."

Even then, he wasn't a fool to be so blindly optimistic. But now? "But what you revealed to me gave me a lot to think about, especially with my father's true nature and my mother's... involvement with him." What did his mother see in that man? A mystery for the ages considering the kind of person his father was and that she's dead and gone.

No need to get hung up over cooked eggs though. He shook his head and said, "Don't worry Miss Summer. I didn't have any good preconception of him to begin with." That must've been why she looked at him with such concern in her gaze, that he had built up a fake image of his parents in his head to make himself feel better about his situation and now his worldview has been broken apart.

Looking at Summer, he saw that her eyes were wide as her lips were slightly open. It seemed that he was right, she did expect him to have made some unfounded assumptions about them.. "...Wow, you are _a lot_ more mature than most kids your age..." Her smile as she put down the photo on the coffee table was filled with sadness. "But I suppose you _had_ to be, growing up all by yourself."

He couldn't help but to smile and let out a faint scoff as he picked up the photo and put it back into his wallet. "Hm. It's not all that bad, Miss Summer. The nuns who took care of me were kind enough as they raised me up. True, I've been alone most of the time, but the bonds I have with the friends and companions I do have are genuine."

"I see... Then I'm glad, Jaune." She let out a sigh before she stood up, "Well... What do you say we do something less heavy, hm? How about... a little show-and-tell?"

Ah. This was the part where she wanted him to show his Stand. "Very well."

"Yang, I'm assuming that you've shown yours?"

"Yeah, I did. How did you know though, mom?" Ah, so she called Summer 'mom'. Informal and a bit juvenile, but that term carried a lot of positive connotations and it implied good things about their relationship.

"Because how else would you find him so quickly if not by showing off your Stand as a bait in hopes that he would pick you out from a crowd?" He looked at Yang and caught her shrugging with a sheepish, uneasy grin. He heard Summer sighing before she said; "Good grief. Oh well, it doesn't matter. Jaune? Would you like to go first or should I?"

"...I'll go first." It was only right for him to be courteous. The woman had been very forthcoming with his origin and this was the least he could do. He took a deep breath before releasing it slowly. Then, he spoke the words, the two words that were the name of his power, his Stand...

" _ **[Prince Gold]**_ **...** "

He didn't need to look at his Stand to know its appearance. It was as tall and as built as himself, a male humanoid spectre colored in light golden, darker golden and royal purple that all gleamed like they were made out of precious metals. It had a human face that lacked a nose, a pair of purple eyes that looked like stained glass engraved with concentric circles emulating human eyes' pupils and irises. Decorated beneath the eyelids were J-letter-shaped white tattoos pointed outward in a diagonal angle, a pair of dome-shaped protrusion for ears and a scarab-shaped helmet in place of hair.

A pair of small wing-shaped protrusions colored in white were on its shoulder blades, its chest is covered with a thin plate of darkger golden armor, its belly button was a purple-and-black ladybug emblem that was also on the back of his hands. Its exposed lower half showed its lack of genitals, its knees were padded with purple heart-shaped emblems and its feet were covered with purple plated shoes.

Another feature that defined it was its _**[Purple vine-like cables]**_ that were on its neck, back, hips and legs connecting each other. The gleaming cables emitted the same golden glow like his whole Stand did. "This is my Stand, Miss Summer, Yang."

"H-holy shit..." He heard Yang whisper, prompting him to turn to her, "It looks... it looks similar to my Speed Queen..." Ah, so that was the name of her Stand. Now that he thought about it, Prince Gold's base color was also golden. "It even has the same purple cables and the heart-shaped kneepads too..."

"Some Stands can look similar to one another, Yang." Summer said immediately and he couldn't help but to narrow his gaze at the woman

It was as if she was trying to get Yang's attention away from the physical similarities between his Stand and her own. Why? Did their similar appearance mean something? Something that she knew about but Yang didn't? Was there a connection between the two of them because of their similar Stands?

"Well, it's quite a strong-looking Stand, Jaune. Very well then... Let me show you mine."

She didn't speak its name yet it showed up in a burst of stardust-like light all the same. Even as it floated above her in a sitting position with its arms behind it, its left leg over its right one, he could tell that it shared Summer's build and stature, just like Prince Gold mirroring his silhouette to a degree.

Contrasting his Prince Gold, Summer's Stand base color was, starting down from its bare areolae-and-nipple-less breasts, gleaming silver with golden linings that went down from the sides of its hips to its legs. Above it, spreading from its head down to its arms of compact dense muscles, he saw innumerable small glowing dots of bright white lights upon a black background with two big ones located in the middle of its chest, upon the cleavage, and one on its forehead. As it moved, the lights moved along with it as if the stars were a part of it.

They were stars... What he was seeing was the starry night sky replicated with so much detail upon its body. It made up a large part of its upper body, going up to its long hair that moved under its own power, floating as if gravity had no hold over it. Its eyes were two bright stars and if it had a mouth, he couldn't see it amongst night sky. All of that made the fact that it was also wearing a white loincloth and boots with golden kneepads look ordinary. The Stand was otherworldly in comparison to his Prince Gold.

" _ **[Stardust Platina]**_ is its name. What do you think, Jaune?"

"It is... quite a sight to see." It reminded him of the first time he saw his own Stand. He was struck by his feeling of intense awe at seeing something so otherworldly that he couldn't stop staring. Now, even though he had seen not one but two Stands, this one elicited that same reaction, as if he was that little boy again who had just realized he had stepped into a bigger world. "It's very beautiful, Miss Summer."

"Yeah..." He heard Yang sighing. Glancing at her, he saw that she was smiling as she looked upon her mother's Stand. "Gold isn't much to gawk about when you have the glow of the stars themselves on you..."

"Thank you Jaune, Yang." The woman said with a grin before she turned to look at him and opened up her arms wide; "Now... Try to hit me with Prince Gold, Jaune."

He blinked. The way she put herself so open like that... She was testing him. She wanted to see how fast and how strong he and his Stand was. Should he use Prince Gold as is or should he use it like Aura? '...Let's start by shooting.' If she wanted to test him, then he should do the same to her.

He kept his mouth silent, his face like a stone and his gaze straight as Prince Gold flew. Similar to but faster than a bullet shot from a gun, his Stand shot toward her with its fists closed tight and its arms held close to the body. Once it was close enough...

" **WRYYEA!"** Prince Gold let out a bellow as its right fist went for the woman's face.

" **ORA!"** Stardust Platina came in front of Prince Gold so fast that it looked like it materialized out of nowhere and blocked the attack with its left forearm.

He saw the air rippling as the coffee table is moved by the backlash of his attack. Then, he felt pain shooting through his right fist. So durable. Prince Gold could easily pulverize metal with a quick punch without putting its back into it, and though that punch wasn't as powerful as he could make it, it was the kind that would break through even a veteran Huntsman's Aura and either wound or kill them.

However... Looking at Summer's left arm, he saw it twitch a bit as she then pulled it close and nurse it with. She was not left unscathed by his attack. "You're pretty good..." The woman said with a grin, "Only a few Stands could match Stardust Platina's sheer strength and durability... One of them was your father's... DIO's Stand..."

"Oh?" Now this was another information. Considering that she didn't say anything about Dio getting a Stand to fight against Jonathan, he must've gotten it when he came back up from the bottom of the sea.

" _ **[THE WORLD]**_ was its name. It was a very strong Stand."

"I see..." Though that particular reveal made him want to know more... "How and why did he get his Stand? Was it the same arrowhead that gave Jonathan his?"

She shook her head. "Not the same one. It's a long story, but there are more than one of those arrowheads around in the world. And as to why..." She chuckled, "Well, you see, Jonathan's body was too much for him to handle, especially since he was just a head at the time. He couldn't access Passion Gold and most of his Wergrim powers were non-existent because Jonathan's body rejected his head's attempts to assume full control and... Well... When I fought him, there was this moment when he... got himself a power-up and got so _**high**_ with power that he started spewing these insane things. He said that he couldn't hear Jojo's voice anymore, that he's finally free from _his_ influence and that _he_ 's finally completely dead."

...Jojo? Ah. _**Jo**_ nathan _**Jo**_ estar. Such an apt nickname... But didn't that mean...? "So even _then_... Jonathan's soul still lived in him?"

"Who knows really? If that were true, then... Jonathan suffered more even after his body was taken. Either way, because of those factors, he needed to have some other power and after he was pointed the way by another enemy of mine, he wanted a Stand of his own. He got himself some more help and gotten similar arrowheads which he used to materialize his own Stand. His THE WORLD was more like ours here than Jonathan's Passion Gold."

A humanoid Stand with high-speed and high-power capabilities, perhaps even highly precise as well... "Hm. Then, judging by how you are here and you said that he was your enemy... He is now dead then?"

"Yes." She did not even hesitate to nod. "...When he came back to life and got himself a Stand... His twisted connection to Jonathan's body caused a ripple effect that spread to all of Jonathan's descendants. My grandfather and I only felt it like a breeze, it was harmless and inconsequential to us because we had manifested our Stands beforehand, but my mother..."

He saw her fists tightening to the point that they were shaking. Her gaze were directed at the ground yet her eyes weren't truly seeing anything. "My mother never materialized her Stand. Hell, she never had her Aura unlocked either. And because of that, the ripple effect was like a poison to her, like being transplanted with an organ that infects the host. To cure her, I needed to erase DIO's presence. I needed to kill him."

...For her family. That reasoning was one that he could see himself doing. If anyone ever threatened Piero's life for example... Yes, he could see himself killing the ones responsible. "...You don't need to excuse yourself, Miss Summer." After what he knew of him from her stories, there was no need for an excuse.

"...But he's still your father." His eyes widened as she gave him a strained smile and slightly teary eyes, "I always believe that killing someone is always the last resort, the thing that you do when everything else fails or are impossible. Even though you might hate me, at the very least I want you to know that I killed him not because I want to, but because I had to. My mother's life was at stake and... I was the only one who could match him, after all."

...Such a kind soul. To think that such a person such as her existed. "You don't need an excuse for what you did Miss Summer and neither do you deserve my hate or need my forgiveness. What you did, you did for your family, for your mother, even. That's more than enough reason."

She looked at him in silence for a long time. Did he say anything wrong? But he only spoke what's in his mind... "Wow..." The woman said in such a quiet voice as if she was out of breath, "...Jaune... Though it was DIO who did the deed... I think... No, I _know_ now that you are Jonathan's son."

"...Thank you." After hearing the story of the man known as Jonathan Joestar, he would take it as a compliment. And coming from the one who knew Dio personally, and having fought him, it was a high praise the likes of which he could not get anywhere else.

"Yes..." She then stood up, "To be honest, I came here fully expecting you to hate me... But I can say that I've been pleasantly surprised... If you don't mind, why don't we move to the balcony? Let's have a little spar using our Stands."

He nodded and stood up. "Lead the way, Miss Summer." It would be an honor and a pleasure for him to do it. The least he could do was to let her do what she wanted.

He ended up walking a few steps behind her along with Yang, following Summer's lead. "Hey." Yang's voice came from his right, "How do you do it?"

"Hm?" Turning his head to her, he saw that she was looking at him with a frown and her red eyes did not have the same fire that he saw when he first met her.

"How do you just... Stay sane? All these shit my mother just threw at you about your father and you barely look like you're even affected."

...He could be wrong, but something told him that she was asking this because at some level, she was experiencing the same thing, but what? Could it be that she too had a problem with a parent of hers? Her father perhaps? He doubted that Miss Summer was the cause of her personal problem. "...I keep focusing on what's important."

"Yeah? And what's that?"

"It depends. Back there, I wanted to know the truth so I kept myself calm. I'm not made out of stone, Yang, what Miss Summer revealed about my father is genuinely painful. But after everything about my fathers are put on the table, I focus on how I'm not just DIO's son, but also Jonathan's. I have to see the silver lining in life instead of just the bad things. Otherwise, the bad things are _all_ that I will see."

Looking at her red eyes, he saw that fire coming back again for a tiny bit. Though she did not grin or smile, she looked better, as if she had been assured. If so, that's good. "...Focus on what's important, huh? Damn, are we even the same age here...?" Though she turned her head to her right, he saw a glimpse of her smile and knew that he had indeed been helpful.

Arriving at the balcony of the penthouse, the first thing he felt was the cool breeze coming from the eastern sea. It put a smile on his face. Rarely had he ever been up high while still being close to the sea.

"Jaune, get over here."

The older woman's voice elicited an immediate response from him, which was to walk to her and stand where she pointed... Which was eight feet in front of her. He stood there and then went still as the woman took off her coat. As expected of a Huntsman, her body showed how much she had trained. The sleeveless red turtleneck shirt helped emphasize her slender yet muscled arms along with her quite sizable bust.

She then began to warm up, stretching her arms up and wide, rotating her upper body left and right, lifting her legs... '...Hm.' He began to stretch his body as well to prepare for-

"Hey, where the hell are you looking at?"

He turned to her daughter and saw that she was glaring at him. Had he been staring? Looking over at Summer and focusing on her eyes this time, he saw that the older woman was still stretching but unlike her daughter's glare, her eyes seemed to sparkle as she smiled. "Oh it's okay Yang. Jaune, just looking is fine, okay?"

"Um... yes, Miss Summer."

The woman's giggle made him feel like he was a kid that had been caught stealing red-handed. It would be best to not look at her while he's stretching. How should he deal with this kind of teasing from a more experienced woman? It wasn't as if he never had girls flirt with him, but they were _girls_. Summer Rose was a _woman_ , a very beautiful woman at that, there was a world of difference between the two.

Not to mention their blood relations... 'Hm... I wonder what my lack of disturbance about that thought says about me?'

"Alright, are you ready Jaune?"

"...Yes." A thought for a later time, for now, he wanted to see how he measure up. Ever since his Stand, Prince Gold, manifested, he had never met anyone who had the same power as him until this day. Though he knew he was strong due to his Stand, he didn't have a standard to compare himself to.

"Now Jaune, I have to ask you... Do you know that you can use your Stand like Aura?"

"I do." It was not anything new for him. With a command, he materialized Prince Gold and had him envelop his body. The feeling of being draped all over with a soft, warm fabric that immediately clung to his skin yet maintaining its feeling of comfort washed over him. He could see and hear things better, his mind felt clearer and every part of his body felt lighter yet also stronger at the same time.

"Good man. Did you teach that yourself?"

"Yes. I once read a book about Aura and made a connection between it and Prince Gold. I experimented a bit before I got it down."

"I see. Well, in case you don't know, this technique is called Shrouding."

He watched as Summer did the same thing. Feeling it happen was one thing but seeing it from the outside was another. Summer and Stardust Platina became one, overlapping one another in a way that he couldn't fully discern. It wasn't as if Summer is replaced by Stardust Platina or vice versa, but in one figure, he saw glimpses of the human and the Stand, like a holographic card that could change its image depending on the beholder's point of view.

"Though I would say that it's more like putting on Power Armor." The woman said with a shrug before she dropped into a stance. She widened her footing then turned her body to face her left a bit while keeping her eyes on him. Her fists were then raised up with the right one being raised higher compared to her left one which she kept close to her torso. "Now... Let's not get too serious here, okay? This balcony isn't exactly a sparring ring. I just want to see how well you can wear your Stand."

"Understood." He ducked his head a bit low as he raised both his fists up at roughly the same height as his cheeks as he put his left leg back a bit and turned his body a bit to his right. Though she said to not take this spar seriously, that didn't mean that he wouldn't put at least a bit of an effort. "Yang." He glanced at his fellow blonde who raised her eyebrow at him calling her. "Could you please call it?"

"Way ahead of you, chief." She said as she raised her right hand up, "Are you two ready? Then go!"

She didn't even wait for a second to slash the air moving her hand down, but he had enough of a reflex to go the moment she said so. He dashed forward with his left leg pushing off and breaking the balcony's floor a bit, covering the eight feet distance between them in less than a fraction of a second. He focused on where he wanted to attack... 'A jab to her stomach.'

"You telegraph your movements, Jaune!" He saw a glimpse of her knees moving up to meet his chin... And he let Prince Gold's fist materialize out of his body to meet hers. "Ghk!" He leaned back, letting her right knee going up without even touching his chin and then he shot out Prince Gold toward Summer.

" **MUDA!"**

"Hrngk!" Her reflex was quick enough to block the strike to her head by raising her forearms. He called back Prince Gold to Shroud himself again and starting with his right foot, he pushed forward and landed an elbow strike to her stomach. "Gah!"

Having had Shrouded himself before, he knew that while it didn't make him as fast and strong as his Stand could be, it would still increase his speed and power exponentially, well beyond that of any Stand-less Huntsmen. However, even so, though Summer's stomach bent under his strength, it still felt so durable.

He watch as she went skidding back, using her feet to carve two trails on the floor to prevent herself from flying away. He dashed forward again, he needed to constantly be on the move to capitalize her initial moment of being caught off-guard. Though she told him to not take it seriously... She was also underestimating him.

Even if it was a friendly spar, it was still a fight. And the way she looked at him made him feel less than equal to her. He knew that it was stupid. After all, Summer was a veteran Huntsman, he deserved to be looked down on a bit by someone like her...

But he, Jaune Giovanna, was not someone who could take such a thing lightly. He couldn't help it, it was in his instinct to retaliate when someone looked down on him, no matter who they were be they higher than him in status, stature or strength!

He primed another attack to the woman who was still skidding against the floor. She tilted her head up then, her silver eyes gleamed like the metal the color is named from as she gritted her teeth...

Then she disappeared.

What... happened? He didn't even blink. One second she was there and the next-

" **ORA!"**

A punch struck his stomach. Looking down, he saw that the culprit was none other than Summer who is Shrouded with Stardust Platina. But how did she move so fast that she was suddenly within his personal space...?

That punch sent him flying up and up and up... When he felt himself stopping in midair as gravity got a hold of him again, he was at a height higher than the hotel he was in. Was that her Stand's power? It was very likely the case as he didn't even see her move. Shrouded with Prince Gold, he could see the movement of a fly moving as if it was in slow motion, so whatever she did, it must've been her Stand's unique power.

If that was the case, then at the very least, he should show her his in return. "...Hm!" Ignoring the pain in his abdomen , he tightened the muscles on that part of his body to curl himself inward and making his body tilt down a bit.

The distance between him and the balcony wasn't too far away, perhaps seventeen to twenty feet? Shrouded with Prince Gold, he would survive the fall even at terminal velocity, but... It would destroy the balcony, more than just cracking the floor, he would make a huge hole on the floor. He could also force himself to float or fall slowly, but... An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a show for a show. His choice was made for him then. He needed to feather his fall, slow down the speed of his descent but without using the raw capability of Prince Gold... And he knew just how to do it.

"Prince Gold! Turn my jacket into wings!"

He felt his jacket ripping as his Stand turned it into what he commanded it to do and integrated it with his back, on to his shoulder blades, spine and nerves. It turned into a pair of gigantic wings of an eagle with golden-and-white feathers. Through his connection with Prince Gold, he knew that it had the wingspan of twenty-four feet and was stronger and more durable than normal wings of any bird that existed.

He opened his wings wide and beat it to fly a bit. He couldn't just drop and slow down his fall, he needed to be as smooth as possible to have a good landing. Carried by the wind that he manipulated with the beat of his wings, he fell down but at a much slower pace, circling the penthouse several times.

Looking over at where Yang and Miss Summer were, he couldn't help but to smile at how their eyes and mouth were wide open. Clearly they didn't expect Prince Gold to possess this kind of power. With his wings he carried himself to the rooftop of the penthouse, looking down on the two women who were still shocked into silence.

He huffed and through a silent command, he had Prince Gold turn back his jacket back to how it used to be. It had become unzipped and unbuckled, fully exposing his body due to what he did but he ignored it for now as he dropped back down to the balcony. He turned to look at Summer and he felt a bit of shame creeping in his heart, "I'm sorry Miss Summer. I had gone overboard."

The woman blinked and opened and closed her mouth but no sound came out. Then, she let out an explosive sigh as she closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose, "Good grief... No no, it's alright, I... I'm sorry as well. Subconsciously, I treated you like I did my daughters when we sparred. Going easy on you while thinking that you're inexperienced riled you up, didn't it?"

"Yes." There was no need to lie there, not when the woman hit the bullseye. "I'm sorry, but I can't stand anyone underestimating me. Usually, those who did so would try to bully or extort money from me. I would often use it to my advantage and... teach them a lesson they wouldn't ever forget."

"I see... Shit, you're quite dangerous, aren't you? You must've fought quite a lot of people to fight so well like that."

"That and I also watched a lot of pro-boxing matches." By using, or to be more precise, by Shrouding himself with his Stand, he could analyze a person's movement better and turn that visual memory into muscle memory with just a little bit of practice. "I also watched other martial arts competitions too. Huntsmen-level competitions."

The woman sighed as she called off Stardust Platina from Shrouding her. "Well... I guess I got enough information. By the way, those wings... That's Prince Gold's main power, isn't it? It changed your jacket into a pair of wings. What is it exactly?"

"...The domain of life itself." It was the simplest wording he could use to describe Prince Gold's unique power. "Its most basic application is infusing inanimate objects with life and turning it into a living thing, either the whole being or just parts of it."

"And you used it to make yourself grow wings..." Yang's voice made him turn and he saw that her eyes were still a bit wide as she looked at him. Then, she let out a chuckle. "That was... one of the coolest things I've ever seen."

"Thanks." He said with a smile as he clasped the ladybug emblem that was his jacket's 'buckle' and zipped up his jacket. Her compliment sounded like a kid gushing about something they found exciting. He then turned to Summer and said; "Miss Summer... Would you mind telling me what Stardust Platina's main power is? Is it teleportation?" It certainly looked like one but 'teleportation' was just one possibility, one that seemed to be the most likely.

"...No." She shook her head, "Instead of space, Stardust Platina has power over time, over one button in the remote control. What I did was stopping time for several seconds."

He felt his heart skip a beat. Stop time...? Such Stands existed? Once he came to the conclusion that Prince Gold's power is bound by the concept known as 'Life', he thought that there must exist other Stands the had control of other domains such as 'Space' or even 'Time'. However, he never put much thought to that last one other than 'It's possible but not likely'.

After all, could such a terrible, terrifying power actually exist in the first place? He could see now that that line of thought, that rhetorical question, was born from his own ignorance and deep-seated subconscious unwillingness to even acknowledge the possibility that such a power _could_ exist in the world. "...I see..."

"Holy shit." Once again, Yang's voice drew his attention. She had lost her smile and was now narrowing her eyes to glare at him. "How the hell are you not freaking out right now? Hell, when she told me about it, I couldn't stop thinking about it for a whole day! Seriously, what are you made out of?"

"...Trust me Yang, I am actually freaking out right now."

"Yeah? Well you don't _look_ like it!"

"Yang, please." Summer's voice came out quiet but it reverberated through the air and managed to make Yang silent. The woman then let out a sigh, "I'm trusting you to keep this a secret, Jaune. I know your power, you know mine, equivalent exchange. Can I have your word that you won't blab this out to anyone?"

He nodded. Such a power would be a great boon if kept as a secret from possible enemies. And if Summer really did have more enemies than just Dio, then all the more reason to keep it under wraps. This was a big secret and he would keep it to his grave as a way to pay her back for telling him his origin. "I will, Miss Summer."

"...Hm." She smiled and nodded, "I believe you. Now..." She looked around at the partially destroyed area and sighed, "...I'll call the lobby and tell them what happened. Good grief, this will cost a lot of money..."

Indeed. Though not thoroughly destroyed, parts of the balcony were chipped, carved out, cracked and even crumbling. She would need a lot of money to pay the extra expenses that will be written on the bill

 **IV-Yang Xiao Long-IV**

She left behind the whole fiasco behind her. It was in the most literal sense of the word as she left her mother to sort the mess out with the hotel staff to escort Jaune out. Though it was by her mother's orders and that she couldn't really help with the negotiation other than apologizing, she still felt a bit miffed.

Maybe it was because she had been in the sidelines for the whole thing that occurred with him and her mother. Then again, it could also be caused by the guy whom she was now walking alongside with. She had never been scared of anyone, not even her mother who she acknowledged could kick her ass to next week if she really, _really_ pissed her off but because she was her mother who raised her up, she could never be scared of her.

But Jaune Giovanna was... He disturbed her a bit. It was because of how controlled and composed he was even in situations where she or even the average people would flip out. She remembered when she first discovered her mother's power, it blew her mind enough to last several days... Yet he was unaffected. Though he said that he was, that coolness of his still remained despite that.

'Maybe he should see _my sister's_ power...' Perhaps _then_ he would flip his lid. Yet even then, she wasn't sure. Now that he knew that a Stand could stop time, maybe her sister's power wouldn't even faze him. If he wasn't fazed by her mother's Stand power _after_ the reveal of his origin, what could really make that stone... No, _iron_ mask of his shift and twist?

Still... Though it was a bit disturbing how calm he could be, she couldn't deny that it also impressed her. She could barely believe that this was the son of the same bastard in her mother's story. 'I guess it's true... He had two fathers, not just one.' The noble Jonathan Joestar was his father too, she must not forget that.

Not to mention that he was a skilled Stand-user with a Stand powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with Stardust Platina, a boy... no, a _man_ with such sculpted muscular body beneath his clothes and the sheer cool and smoothness that just oozed off of him constantly... He was definitely an impressive figure...

What was this feeling in her heart? Though she's impressed with him, he still elicited this... This feeling of anger and... Not outright hate, but... resentment, perhaps? Was she jealous of him as well? But for what?

...Ah. That's right. Even though it was caused by her mother underestimating him, he did land a few good hits on her and actually forced her to use Stardust Platina's power. Only her sister managed to do that, and even then, even _she_ had to use her own power.

She herself never landed a good one that elicited the same reaction she just saw...

What a complicated feeling... There was only one way to settle it. As soon as they stepped out of the hotel's lobby, she said; "Hey Jaune, you wanna spar with me?"

He stopped and turning to her with a single eyebrow raised, "...I don't mind really, but what brought this on?"

She grinned. So he was still up for more? Then again, he didn't even look winded after her mother just punched him while Shrouded. Those muscles of his did wonders. "Seeing you fight my mom makes me feel... itchy." Restless more like, and she needed a good outlet to vent out all the accumulated energy.

"...I see." He then glanced up for a moment before he walked away, "Let's do it tomorrow."

"...What?!" What was this now? Why did he get cold feet all of a sudden? She went to his left and matched his pace. "What do you mean tomorrow?"

"You'll be here tomorrow, so let's do it then instead." He raised his left hand and pointed at the top of the hotel behind them with the thumb, "We caused enough of a ruckus for one day. Unless you want to take this at least ten miles away from here, I suggest we do it tomorrow because I still have things to do for the day."

She grimaced as she looked around. Indeed, his and her mother's fight caused a lot of people in the sidewalk to stop and look. "...Fine."

He fell silent, as did she as they continued to walk away. He walked through the streets of Niapoli, heading somewhere she couldn't predict due to her lack of familiarity with the city. Was he going back home? If so, where was it? He no longer lived in the orphanage he grew up in, so did he live by himself? Did he even make enough money daily from being a criminal that he could afford to pay rent?

She wanted to know all of that and more, she wanted to find out more about the life that this vexing man lead...

He entered the nearby tram station. In certain cities in the world, Trams have been modernized to a degree to not only compete with other forms of transportation but also to provide a more comfortable experience for the passengers. However, in some cities like Niapoli, the trams are kept just a bit outdated in terms of function while keeping its ages old aesthetic in place all in the name of 'cultural preservation'.

"Isn't this mostly aimed for tourists?" She couldn't help but to ask as he went to one of the open line-less ticket booths.

"And are you _not_ a tourist?" His rhetorical question caught her off-guard. Turning to face him, she saw him smiling, "The least I can do if you're going to follow me around is to show you around some parts of the city and this tram is a great way to do it while relaxing." He then turned to face the one manning the booth and said; "Two tickets please."

...Smooth. He didn't ask why she was following him around or even ask her to go away, he simply took her for a trip on the tram, treating her to what could be construed as a date. She couldn't help but to grin as he paid for the tickets like a gentleman, "Mr. Giovanna, are you asking me out?"

"I am." Blunt yet smooth. There was no hesitation in his body language, no pause in his admission, just straight to the point. He took the tickets and extended one of them toward her, "But of course, Ms. Xiao Long, you can still say no."

She let out a chuckle. A chuckle, not a giggle, and took the ticket. "Oh well." She shrugged as she rubbed her fingertips on the ticket, "I'd feel bad if I refuse since you've already paid the ticket for me, Mr. Giovanna." Now how would he respond?

"Ms. Xiao Long, if you accepted my offer because you'd feel bad otherwise, you wouldn't have such a angelic smile on your pretty face." He then turned and began to walk away while glancing at her, "It's rare seeing a beautiful devil making such an angel-like expression. I have to say, it suits her."

He then turned his head away from her... And she gulped down a lump that suddenly came up her throat. '...Fuck.' She felt the heat on her cheeks that were stretched by how wide her smile must look and shook her head to fight it off as she followed him. 'This guy...' A gentleman he might be but he was also a smooth talker.

She followed him into one of the trams where he went to the fifth row of the fold-able seats and took a seat on the right most side, directly next to one of the windows. She went to the one directly across from his and sat down facing him. "...I hope you know your city well enough to give me some info while we pass by the city."

"I won't disappoint." _So_ humble he was, but he said such a thing so calmly without coming off as indignant or childish to the point that it sounded almost professional so another point for him. 5 for Jaune, 0 for her, she's really out of her wits today. Then again, she _did_ try to rile him up with that last sentence she spoke to him so she'll take another loss, especially with how pathetic that last attempt was.

Soon enough, the tram started to move. There were only a few people around them, making the tram almost completely silent save for the sound of its engine and its wheels grinding on the rail.

...It was relaxing, she had to admit. Seeing the buildings pass them by at a slow pace thus allowing her to take it all in while remaining seated lulled her, comforted her. The tram going slowly created a steady rhythm that soothed her ears and the gentle rocking sensation it made as it moved only amplified the feeling. She smiled as she leaned back on her seat a bit.

Looking at the man in front of her, she saw him looking out the window, taking in the view in silence. His gaze was a bit unfocused as he watched the view outside as if he was lost in his own thoughts. '...I wonder what he's thinking?'

Jaune Giovanna... Considering his bizarre origin, then wouldn't it be appropriate to call him Jaune Joestar? While he might be an illegitimate son fathered by a monster, he was still, by the blood that flowed through his father's body, a part of the Joestar family. Hell, his family name was given to him by the nuns who took care of him, so-

'...Wait... **Jau** ne **Gio** vanna... **Jau** ne **Joe** star... Holy shit.' By virtue of both the initial syllable of his given and family name, he could be called 'Jojo'. 'Like mom's first and middle name...' **Jo** sephine **Jo** y Rose. "Hey Jaune."

He turned to her with a much sharper and more directed gaze, "Yes?"

"Have you ever been called Jojo before?"

"...The nuns used to when I was a kid." He then leaned forward while propping his elbows on top of his knees. He went silent as he looked at her in the eye for a second and then he said; "It's one of my fathers' nickname too, and it was because of the same reason, the first syllable in our first and last names combined... And that talk your mother had about Destiny... You're thinking that there's something important about that nickname?"

"Hell yeah there is." There must be. It couldn't be a coincidence that-

A movement caught her eye, coming from the back of the train. It was the side she was facing and it occurred on the left side of the tram. A shadow was receding into a spot behind one of the chairs on the back... Into a blind spot that is supposed to be illuminated by the sunlight coming from the right. No shadow could move in such a manner while the sunlight is angled toward its position. Besides that, there were nobody there to block said sunlight in the first place so it wasn't like the receding shadow is caused by someone moving in a particular mann-

A person stood up from behind the chair, allowing her to see them from the waist up. '...Could this be a Stand at work...?' It was likely, but she needed to assess the situation carefully. She could've been mistaken and that the person had been there all along on her blind spot, crouching to stay out of sight.

The person was a woman, maybe as tall as she herself was. Short black hair that only reached down her jawline styled into a neat, immaculate bob that complemented her fair skin, golden eyes with thick slit pupils and a pair of furry cat ears as black as her hair poking out of the top of her head.

A faunus, a hybrid sub-species, an off-shoot of humans who possessed animal traits on their bodies and in this case, it was a cat, one that she didn't know the type of, perhaps an average black house cat. She walked toward them, the sound of her black heeled shoes clacking echoed in the mostly silent tram. Her gait was smooth, elegant, controlled... But she could see that she is poised to strike at any given moment like a cat sneaking up to her prey.

Complementing her feline features were her dark ensemble of a black sleeveless dress. It is patterned with tiny dots of white-colored teardrops, featuring neck-covering high collars that is closed together by a golden-tinted zipper with its slider hanging at the bottom, moving and jingling against her bare skin that is exposed by the upside-down-triangle-shaped opening that showed off her neckline, a flower-patterned sheer black bra that barely even covered the fair skin of her decent-sized breasts and the upper part of her well-toned stomach. It is followed with a slider on top of another closed golden zipper that went down and stopped on where her belly button should be.

Starting from the waist, the dress is split at the sides, with the front and bottom going down to her knees with the gaps exposing her hips and even parts of her buttocks. Though the faunus' breasts were smaller than hers, the girl had a pair of very well-toned legs that were clothed with a pair of sheer black stockings which went down to the heeled high-top black shoes that shone with the reflection of light as they covered her whole forelegs.

She watched as the faunus woman went past her while lifting her left hand decorated with a net-patterned black bracelet to push back part of her hair that draped the left side of her head. Instead of a human ear, that side of her head is covered with black fur that went up to her left feline ears, decorated with some golden oval-shaped emblem adorned with the teeth of a zipper. The cat woman smiled at her and then, with the index finger of her left hand, she gestured for her to follow.

...The woman was playing a game. What was her deal...?

"That woman wasn't here before." Jaune's voice brought her out of her reverie. Turning to him, she saw that he was looking at where the faunus woman was going with narrowed eyes. "And while I'd understand why she would flirt with you, I don't believe her intention is so simple as that."

"Yup." Thank goodness they were both on the same page. Still, what should be the game plan here? "...Let's go face her together." She said as she stood up and began to walk toward the faunus woman. Hearing the sound of his footsteps right behind her, she smiled as she began to crack her knuckles.

She saw her opening and getting through the door leading to the tram conductor and scowled. Was she going to force the train to stop? Not on her watch. She hastened her pace and reached out to the still opened door.

"Yang, don-!"

She slipped and fell. That was the only description that she could make out as she began to fall down a dark hole. "The fuck?!" Gravity that somehow still existed made her fall down further, "Shit!" She Shrouded herself with Speed Queen just in case... "Oof!" With the sound of hard ceramic cracking, she hit the floor with her right shoulder first..

"Nggggh!" She let out a groan as she forced herself up. Her head was getting hot but first, assess the situation _then_ take action. Where was she? Was she still in the tram? "...Fuck." No, she wasn't. She was inside some bathroom, a dingy unclean bathroom even. With a scowl, she reached for the door. "Gotta get out of here...!"

She opened the door, immediately got in... And saw herself reflected many times all over. "...This..." She found herself facing a kaleidoscope-like view of her own reflection made by a room full of mirrors. They were on the walls, the ceiling and even the floor.

Then, there was a sound. For a moment, it sounded like the sound ice breaking apart because of external force but it was warped, as if it was a result of said sound being rewound in real time. Glancing at what's behind her, she saw that the door she had gone through was now gone, replaced by the kaleidoscope-like mirrors.

"...There's no mistaking it... This is the work of a Stand..." And that meant the woman that she and Jaune met was... "...Okay." She nodded as she took a deep breath before releasing it just as slowly. She had gotten into a trap, but it wouldn't do for her to panic. "Alright. If that's how you want to play it, let's play." This was some sort of game. That woman was playing bait, she bit it and now here she was.

She _had_ to get out of here, but she won't be able to do that if she rushed ahead blindly with no rhyme or reason. She took another deep breath then releasing it slowly. She had to calm down, assess the situation and _then_ take action. She squeezed her fists, cracking her knuckles as she did so. Jaune would be alright, she's sure of it, but how many were there? If that woman was not working alone, then would this trap be the work of just one person or more? She needed to find out more and hoped that Jaune was doing the same on the other side.

And if that meant she had to beat the life out of this Stand-user to get it, then so be it.

 **IV-Jaune Giovanna-IV**

He charged through the door to the conductor's room and looked around... But Yang wasn't inside. There was only the conductor who saw him and immediately widened his eyes, "H-hey! How did you get in here?!"

"Apologies sir." He said with a slight bow before walking back into the passengers' area and closed the door behind him. 'I saw it. It was just a glimpse, but I saw it. A _**[dark shadow]**_ that Yang fell _down_ into.' He then turned to where he and Yang had been sitting and narrowed his eyes at the cat faunus woman who had taken Yang's seat.

She turned her head, glancing at him with her cat-like golden eyes before smiling and turning back to face his seat.. There was no doubt in his mind that the woman caused Yang to disappear. She was playing with them, casting the bait which Yang took... But was that all there is to it? For whom did she throw the bait?

In essence, who was she really here for? She sent Yang away yet here she was still and she was waiting for him to come to her. Did that mean that she was here for him? Then why did the dark shadow disappear when he entered the conductor's room? Was that dark shadow a one-way tunnel that had no fork or branches to separate anything thrown there so she could only take one between him and Yang and deal with the other after?

All these questions could only be answered by facing her head-on. With that in mind, he began to walk. 'It must be the work of her Stand. It has to be related to _**[shadows]**_ somehow, one that seems to be able to bend space to its will... If I were to fight her, then I need to focus my strikes at her and not her Stand.' Especially if a physical contact with the Stand caused the strange shadows to manifest in the first place.

He took his seat, leaned back a bit as he looked at the woman straight in the eye. She met his gaze head on and he had to admit, the woman was very beautiful. She stood as a contrast to Yang, the dark to Yang's light, especially with what she was wearing, black over black with a bit of white mixed in.

Still... The confidence... no, the _arrogance_ in the woman's eyes made him want to punch her lights out. She had just sent Yang to some place where she might be in danger. He didn't know what Stand Queen's power was so whoever she was facing might be capable of defeating her. She was playing with their very lives and that he could not stand.

So, what he should do was to take the reins, start the conversation in a way that would put her ill at ease. However, he didn't have a good hand while she might have a royal flush in hers. He must start with a bluff, betting a large number of his chips to a play that might or might not work, all based on a simple observation about her clothes that might mean nothing.

"So, Ms. Belladonna, I presume?"

Her eyes widened for a bit before she schooled herself back to a neutral expression. It all happened for a split-second, but he didn't miss the way the look of arrogance in her eyes disappeared after he said that. "Mr. Giovanna."

Hearing the terseness in her voice made him have to fight off a smile to maintain his game face. It worked, an out-there bluff that hit the mark. Then again, it was a bit stupid of her to wear a bra that is patterned with said six-petaled flower all over them if it happened to be her namesake. Did she choose it out vanity, perhaps?

Still, she knew his name somehow even though he had never seen her before. How? "Let me introduce myself..." She put her right hand on her cleavage and her left forearm on top of her legs and said; "My name is Blake Belladonna, and I have a few questions for you... First question, Mr. Giovanna..." Her golden eyes seemed to gleam as she said; "Do you believe in Fate?"

...What is this? He had met two different people talking about the same thing within the same day separated by just a short time. "...I believe it to a certain point." Said point has been furthered down to the right of the spectrum line between 'A disbeliever' to the left and 'A believer' to the right after all that just happened today.

"You see, you might not have noticed, but I have been keeping an eye on you for a long while now. Now don't be flattered, it's all a part of my job. Let's see, how long has it been...?" She looked up as she cupped her chin before her eyes widened, "Ah yes, I remember. It has been _**[Two years]**_ now."

...Ah, so that's how she knew of him. "You certainly know how to keep yourself hidden. I've never even been informed that I had a handler."

"Oh don't flatter yourself. I'm tasked to watch over the whole city, not just you. Despite that though... I actually never reported anything unusual about you to any of my bosses." She said with a smile and the gleam in her golden eyes seemed to intensify, "Why, might you ask? Because on that first day of my assignment, when I saw you use your Stand... I knew that I had to make sure you are never caught in the cross-hairs of any of the bosses."

...So she was an opportunistic stalker who decided that he was valuable enough to be kept a secret... And that she was high enough in ranking to have authority over the city. "You want to make it seem like I'm worth nothing to them."

"Molto bene (Very good). To them, you're nothing more than a low-rank member of _**[Passione]**_ who likes to help the powerless, especially the children whom you turn into your subordinates." She said as she crossed her legs, "They are satisfied that you give tribute to them per month and to them, having the children following you is just a plus for them since they think you represent the gang to them."

She then leaned down a bit, placing her right elbow on top of her crossed legs, pointed her right palm up before she put her right cheek upon the palm to tilt her head a bit while looking up at him with an angle that emphasized her beauty and cat-like features. "They don't know that you have a power that only a certain few in the gang is allowed to possess. A Stand-user by birth left unchecked... A dangerous element to the gang's hierarchy, perhaps dangerous enough... for the boss himself."

...Did she know? No, she couldn't. He had never told anyone about his dream, not even to the children. Still, he needed to choose his words carefully now. Staying silent would only make her suspicious and outright denying it was worse. "...Yet you didn't eliminate me or reported me to your bosses." Which meant that she had an agenda of her own.

"That's because you have never caused any trouble for anyone, neither the gangs nor the people of Niapoli... Until now, of course." She leaned back on her seat and smiled, "Tell me... Who are those Huntresses?"

...So _that_ was why she suddenly took action now. She was approaching him now because she saw him talking with two unknown Huntresses who had not been bought by the Passione. '...Ah, shit.' A recent memory came to mind, specifically, the method Yang used to try and find him. 'She must've been seen using her Stand, thus increasing her suspicion of me...'

It was bad enough that he was seen talking to two Huntresses that weren't on Passione's payroll, but when one of them had a Stand... Still, was it just Yang? Had she seen Summer's Stand as well? That battle on top of the hotel, did she see all that as well and in detail? Either way, he was knee-deep in excrement right now.

"Ah, you're sweating." She got off her seat as soon as she said that and loomed over him, putting her face close to his. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed down, keeping him seated. He felt the edges of his lips twitching as the sweet scent of her breath hit him and he had to keep himself from grimacing.

She touched him, therefore her _Stand_ touched him. He was at her mercy now. "Oh? Now that's an interesting expression you have... Do you know, Jaune Giovanna, that you can know when someone is lying by tasting their sweat? The fear of being caught in their lie caused a chemical reaction in the body that seasoned the sweat... I wonder what your sweat tastes like now?"

He remained as still as possible as the woman put her face close to the left side of his head and began to smell him. "Hm... you smell quite good, I have to admit..." She then put her lips right next to his left ear, "What's your relationship with those Huntresses?"

...Perhaps some half-truth would work. If what she said about her being able to taste his lie through his sweat was true, then he could choose his words carefully to not reveal much about them... "They're my family."

"Your family, you say...? ...Lnah~" He felt her wet tongue licking up his sweat followed with her smacking her lips. "Nmm... I see... I'm glad you found them, Jaune." He blinked, caught a bit off-guard by the _sincerity_ he heard in her tone of voice. "But you see... the problem is that they are Stand-using Huntresses who have no allegiance to Passione... I know about your power, so will you be so kind as to tell me theirs?"

He forced his heart to cool off for a moment to put aside how happy she sounded for him back there. Now, what kind of half-truth could he give without giving himself, Yang and/or Summer away too much? "...I only know about one of them. Her power is to accelerate her personal 'speed' to the point that the whole world seemed to stop."

At that, she pulled back her head a bit to see him face-to-face. There was a bit of shock in her narrowed her eyes as she said; "...Which one of them has it?"

He kept his lips closed as he directed his eyes at the door leading to the conductor's room for a good five seconds before turning back to meet her eyes again with a scowl.

She scowled back before going down on his neck and licked up his sweat again. He heard her smacking her lips again followed with the sound of her gulping. "...Hmm... You're not lying... But somehow you're keeping _something_ from me." She then pulled back her head again to meet his eyes with a glare, "Last question... What was it that you were talking about with them in that hotel?"

...Though he knew that she didn't mean it to be personal to him, it still felt like she deliberately asked that to rile him up. Half-truth, he had to give her half-truth... But what? "...About my father and mother." Though it was more than that, if she knew about how he was an orphan, that might be enough.

"Ah, your parents?" For a moment, a split-second, he saw her glare softening before she schooled her expression once more, "I guess it must've been so bad that you caused such a ruckus. Would you mind telling me _all_ about it?"

He scowled again, this time he felt himself heating up all over and that heat prompted him to say; "No."

She raised an eyebrow at that, "Oh? Do you not understand the position you are in? Your safety, your livelihood, relies on your honesty. By trying to get out of it, you're only make things look worse for yourself. In fact, your unwillingness to talk about it makes me believe that you talked about _more_ than just your birth parents. Tell me _all_ about it, Jaune Giovanna."

"It has nothing to do with you nor is it important to you." He felt his heart beating faster as his blood began to burn, "Neither has it anything to do with the gang. I would like you to ask something else, _please_." He couldn't help the growl that he let out as he said that last word.

He met her narrowed gleaming golden eyes and dared her to force him. If this was the point where she would fight him, then so be it, there was no way that he would tell her all the things that Miss Summer told him. It was personal, it was family and she was nothing to him.

"...Fine." She let out a growl. "Another question then... Are you loyal to Passione, Jaune?"

A direct yes or no question and one that he couldn't escape from. Even a misdirection or a deflection would give him away. Still, after the way she insisted him to talk about matters that did not concern her... He didn't care anymore. "Yes." He said as flatly as possible. 'Do you need to taste me again, woman? Go on, make it goddamn sure that I just lied to you.'

She went down on his neck quickly and this time, she kissed a spot on his neck and bit him, hard enough for him to feel her sharp teeth penetrate through several layers of his skin and made him wince. He heard her slurping down more than just his sweat before she let go of his neck and pulled back.

Her golden eyes gleamed as she grinned, showing off her sharp fangs and lips stained with blood trailing down their edges, "This taste... Is the taste of a liar...!" A shadow began to form all around her, shaping itself into a corporeal form that looked quite human-like, "Jaune Giovanna!"

He reached up with both of his hands, grabbed her by her wrists and activated the power of his Stand. She reacted fast, " _ **[Painted Black Cat]**_." She whispered as a humanoid figure of a humanoid with a pair of cat ears-like protrusion on top of its head materialized above her. Glancing up, he saw that it lacked eyes but from the neck down, it was pretty much a three-dimensional dark silhouette of a human woman with a pair of cat ears on top of its head. It was fast too, its right fist was coming onto him in a fraction of a second to hit him...

And then it stopped. He looked at her eyes and saw that her gaze was blank, as if she wasn't really seeing anything in front of her. He huffed as he pushed away her hands from his shoulders while she remained rooted on the spot. Then, he stood up, took a moment to wipe off the dripping blood on his neck with his right hand before putting it back down as the wounds were now closed without even a visible scar.

He squeezed his fists separately, cracking his knuckles in the process and scowled at the woman frozen in place. Though her gaze was empty as if she wasn't actually looking at anything in particular, she still had that smile on her face as if everything was alright and in place. He couldn't help but to smile and let out a scoff at the irony of how she must actually be feeling right now.

He had Prince Gold raised its right fist and pulled back a bit. He set up enough force to equate the fist as a bullet and the arm as a cocked gun aimed at the woman in front of him. "You must've caught on and are trying to dodge this by now. Don't bother. **Muda da (It's Useless)**."

A struck to her cheek sent her flying back to the front of the train, slamming her onto the wall with a loud bang before she slid down, crash-landing to the floor just as loud and hard as when she hit the wall.

He heard her groaning and knew that it wasn't over. Slowly, carefully, he began to walk to her...

 _ **-To be Continued...**_

 _ **P.S.:**_ So here we are. I've been absent for a very long time now for many reasons, the main one being 'Life' while the others are more personal, which includes me becoming doubtful of my own writing skills. I apologize for having been gone for so long and this chapter is basically to show you who followed/favorited me and my stories some form of appreciation.

This fic is spurred on by the fact that Vento Aureo anime is coming. One of the best parts of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, I'd put it second after Steel Ball Run in terms of how it handles the thematic narrative that pertains to its own Part. Sure, the part is, based on its connections to the series' continuity as a whole, the most enclosed and cut-off part of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure compared to all the other Parts, but I think it is actually beneficial to Part 5 as a whole because it doesn't have to deal with a lot of continuity baggage that it has to carry compared to let's say Part 3, 4 or 6.

While it does have direct/indirect connections to the other Parts post-Battle Tendency like the Arrows, DIO and a certain Crusader, the story uses them to push Giorno's personal adventure with him and his gang rather than to push an overarching narrative of the series as a whole.

Araki did the whole 'Enclosed Story Arc' well with the Hunt for Yoshikage Kira arc in the second-half of Part 4, and he continued that particular style of storytelling in Part 5 but with Part 6, he focused on using the established continuity to push a bigger overarching story that concerned more than just Jolyne and her gang's story.

It's okay to make a story that is a bit impersonal to follow up what has been set before and Part 6 is just fine to me. But personally, I think Part 6 is _the_ part where the continuity baggage becomes a bit too heavy with constant reference and flashbacks to DIO through his [Special Friend] and his [Wacky World Warping Plan] which was a whole 'nother can of worms on its own.

In my personal opinion, [A Certain Mozart Composition] in Part 5 is a better plot driver than [GOD's Journal] in Part 6 because Part 6 tried to make it seem as if the [Wacky World Warping Plan] was DIO's whole schtick for world domination since before Part 3 even started without enough foreshadowing beforehand while the former is Part-locked onto Vento Aureo featured on and thus lessening how Deus Ex Machina-like it is.

In the manga, if I remember it correctly, there was no foreshadowing whatsoever in Part 3 or any part that come after it until Part 6 to make it seem like what happens in Part 6 was the plan all along and thus, the story element that drove the Part, [GOD's Journal], feels a bit... tacked on. Stone Ocean is a Part of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure that relies heavily on the pre-established continuity of the whole series and that reliance becomes both its greatest strength and weakness because while it ties Jotaro and DIO as two essential parts to the main storyline again, due to the lack of foreshadowing on the preceding Parts before Part 6 about DIO's plan to enact a [Ritual] to [Acquire A Holy Place], it becomes a bit detrimental to my enjoyment of the Part.

And that's not even going to the question of 'How the hell did DIO get the idea for the [Ritual] anyway?'. With how many flashbacks there were in Part 6 about DIO and his [Special Friend] before he started the events of Part 3 to try and sell the idea that DIO had been planning to [Acquire A Holy Place] before Part 3, one would think that it would be mentioned at least once in the Part where the [Ritual] becomes important on, but as far as I can remember it, there was no mention as to _where and how_ DIO came to know that particular [Ritual] to [Acquire A Holy Place].

But anyway, that's all I have to say about Vento Aureo and Stone Ocean for this Post Script...

I'm sure you've noticed that my writing style has changed. I have decided to start making my narrative style more defined and the one that I'm most comfortable with are two types of narration which, in this story, is 'Limited Third-Person Perspective', in which I focus on a certain character's perspective while still using third-person pronouns, a style that you can see from _A Song of Ice and Fire_ books by George R.R. Martin, a writer who is a thousand times better than I am.

Though I've been absent, I haven't actually stopped writing altogether. I've been writing every day to get used to this kind of writing style. Whether or not you believe me though, is up to you. However, even before I dropped out of the face of this site, I started to become incapable of writing in 'Third-Person Perspective' that isn't limited to a certain character. Not because I _can't_ per se, but because I feel less and less comfortable with it.

If I have to put it into an analogy, it's like breaking myself out from my own skin for a while to invade someone else and become them. Seeing sudden changes of perspective in a story's narration on other's works also bugs me as well now because it makes the narration a bit disjointed.

I will try and remain consistent with this new writing style as practice and hopefully, I will be able to update my stories as regularly as possible. With all that said, to those of you who are reading this down to this point, thank you and please, leave a review if you can, I'd really like your feedback on this story.

 **P.P.S:** Written below are the characters that appeared in this chapter, the characters their appearances are supposed to be based from, their Stands and their Stands' namesakes.

 **Jaune Giovanna Arc=Giorno Giovanna.**

 **Stand:** Prince Gold **'Localization Version':** Golden Prince*

 **Namesake:** Prince (musician) + Gold (Prince Song)

*Personally speaking, I think Golden Prince should've been the localized version of Gold Experience instead of just going with Golden Wind to match the English translation of the Part title, Vento Aureo/Ogon no Kaze.  
Golden Prince _might_ refer to said musician and/or his titular song, but the term 'Prince' and 'Golden/Gold' are broad enough to _not_ be a direct reference to the man or the song, like how Josuke's Crazy Diamond becomes Shining Diamond but is still a reference to the Pink Floyd song ' **Shine** on You Crazy **Diamond** ' while not being direct enough of a reference to the song and thus avoiding the copyright issues.  
And also, by using the word 'Golden Prince' to contrast 'King/Emperor Crimson', the thematic element of 'A Prince fighting a King for the Throne' in the conflict between Giorno and Diavolo will still be obvious without Giorno's Stand evoking the name of a certain Prince album.)

 **Josephine J(oy). "Summer" Rose=Kujo Jotaro (Part 5)**

 **Stand:** Stardust Platina **'Localization Version':** Stardust Platina

 **Namesake:** Star Tarot Card + Star Platinum + Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie Song))

 **Yang Xiao Long=DIO (Part 3).**

 **Stand:** Speed Queen **'Localization Version':** Velociqueen

 **Namesake:** Speed King (Deep Purple Song))

 **Jonathan Joestar (Mentioned Only)  
**

 **Stand:** Passion Gold. Sunshine Superman (The nickname Speedwagon gave to Jonathan with the Stand active) **'Localization Version':** Golden Passion, Sunlight Hero

 **Namesake:** Passion (The English version of the Latin word 'Passio' which was once used only to refer to Jesus' crucifixion. Also, it's a Rod Stewart Song.) Sunshine Superman (Donovan Song))

 **Blake Belladonna=Bruono Bucciaratti**

 **Stand:** Painted Black Cat 'Localization Version': Shadow Cat

 **Namesake:** Paint It Black & Brown Sugar* (The Rolling Stones Songs)

*From a couple of sources I read, including the rollingstone site, the famous song 'Brown Sugar' was originally titled as 'Black P***y' by Mick Jagger before the man himself changed it. Hence Blake's Stand name.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the original sources which I used and changed as I see fit to make the stories which I publish in this here site.

 **Mugiwara N0 Luffy:** My intention was for any potential readers to think that Jaune _is_ Giorno in this story, but as per your suggestion, I have removed Giorno from the character list and put two more relevant ones, Blake and Yang. Thank you for your input, I've enjoyed your stories as well, especially A Devil's Diamond and Thieves Can Be Heroes!, so I'm very happy to know that you've read it. If you're reading this as well, I hope I've made myself clear as to why I put Giorno in the character list.

 **Anonymous Guest 10th Reviewer:** Surprise!

 **AN:** On another note, I have also changed the summary for this story. I had fun thinking up sentences that describes the story a bit while also referencing the anime's opening songs pre-Part 5, but that novelty has worn off for me. If there's anybody out there who liked the previous description, I apologize, but I felt that it was necessary to change it.

 **Chapter 2**

 **I-Yang Xiao Long-I**

Her mother told her many times during their Stand Lessons that Stands came in many shapes, forms and powers. There were more variations of Stand's types than there were Dust types or Semblance types in the world and thus a fight with any Stand-user was, more often than not, far from being a straightforward battle like between a Huntsman and a Grimm or even a fight between two Huntsmen.

Overwhelming Power won't matter much if an enemy had a counter to it or had incapacitated you even before the fight 'officially' started. The most dangerous Stand-users were the ones who not only knew how to use their Stands effectively but also knew to hide and set up a form of trap to use to their advantage, setting up the battlefield to act in their favor before the fight even began.

Her mother also emphasized the need to think first before doing anything if they ever got caught in a fight with another Stand-user, especially if the one who had set things up beforehand wasn't her. However, she also often said that keeping herself moving was better than staying still...

For all the training her mother had given her, she had never been taught about what she should do when fighting a Stand-user in an enclosed space, especially when said Stand-user was the one who created said enclosed space in the first place. 'Still, if this Stand is mirror-based... Could it reflect the damage inflicted on it back onto its attacker?'

In a lull during a battle while lacking any information available about the enemy, one needed to test things out. Such a thing was a very risky move of course and was generally the last resort whenever it came to any other battles, conventional or not, but when you didn't have any reference and you couldn't escape, what else _should_ you do?

She had to start small. Summoning Speed Queen, she directed it to a spot right in front of her with the tip of its right index finger being held in place by its right thumb. Then, she had Speed Queen bend down with its right hand pointed toward the floor until its finger touched the floor's surface. It then flicked its right index finger finger, creating web cracks that spread around the spot she hit it on for at least half a foot wide.

Glancing at her right index finger, she saw that it was unharmed. 'So its power is not damage reflection... Yeesh, thank goodness for that.' It would be a rather powerful Stand if that were the case, making its user near-invincible and hard to counter if not completely immune to- 'Hm?' The warped sound of glass shattering drew her attention again, this time it came from below her. Looking down to where she heard it, she saw that the hole she made had been repaired. 'Hm...' This phenomenon might be the core of this Stand's power.

Now that she knew its power wasn't damage reflection, she could let loose a bit. She raised her right foot for about four inches/ten centimeters off the floor, called Speed Queen back, Shrouded herself and stomped, shattering the spot that met her foot. She immediately removed her foot and kept her eyes focused on the cracks.

The sound that she had been hearing is accompanied with the sight of light filling up the gaps in those cracks. "Hm!" Using Speed Queen to sharpen her sight, she saw that the light is actually made up of a large number of tiny swarms of white bluish light that reminded her of fireflies. 'Ah, is _that_ the true form of the Stand? A Swarm-type that when combined, made up a room full of mirrors all over? Or... Does the Stand just possess the room?'

As the cracks were filled up until it looked as if nothing happened to it, she looked around, 'Alright, now... Is the Stand-user here?' From what she remembered of her mother's lessons, a Swarm-type of Stand could be remote-controlled from afar or move independently without requiring a direct mental connection with the user while a Stand that possessed physical objects needed direct physical contact with its user. 'Hm... how to solve this one...?'

If the Stand-user was with her and this was a Possessor-type, then she _could_ goad them into coming out from... Wherever they were hiding. However, if this was a swarm-type Stand then her best bet was to just rain a barrage of punches on one side of the room and hoped that things worked out. Still, that would be a waste of energy if it turned out that the Stand could regenerate faster than she could punch it.

One of the important lessons her mother taught her when fighting a Stand battle was to never, in kinder words, blow your load early. Only let yourself _really_ loose when you knew or sure enough that it would end the fight. "...Hey!" Provocation was the only way of knowing what type of Stand this was. "Mind telling me why your friend brought me here?"

Silence was the response of the Stand-user. It could mean that the user couldn't hear her but was it really because they were far away and couldn't actually hear her? If so, then she needed to push the Stand-user's buttons... "...You know, I never thought that it's true... Faunus really _are_ sneaky scums, the whole lot of them. That black cat might be pretty, but man..." She shook her head, "I shouldn't have forgotten that as soon as you take your eyes off of them," She raised her right hand and snapped her fingers, "they'll take advantage of you, just like that. Fucking bitch. I bet she dresses up like that to draw attention as well, having been trained by some pimp ever since she was little to-"

She heard a high-pitched buzzing noise followed by feeling something smacking the back of her head. It wasn't a fist of a high-power, high-speed Stand but it was strong enough of a confirmation for her. The Stand wasn't a remote-controlled Swarm-type, it's a Possessor-type, the Stand-user was here with her, hearing her every word and possibly seeing her every move. She grinned, "...Oh? I hit a sore spot, didn't I? You know it's true. Hell, no one dresses like that if they're not an attention whore. Who knows, maybe she really _is_ a genuine whore, I wouldn't be surprised with how often those animals like to mate. Hell, considering she's a cat faunus, I'm betting she has a _lot_ of her litters populating the damn city as 'orphans'."

The high-pitched buzzing noise came from behind her again and this time, she was ready. She summoned Speed Queen behind her facing that direction and saw that instead of a swarm, it was a rather tiny Stand in the form of a humanoid female silhouette no bigger than her head made out of fragments of mirrors joined together in a haphazard way.

Its eyes were made out of white light shaped in the form of human eyes and it lacked a mouth. As it flew toward her with its long hair flowed behind its head, she could discern the look of anger in its narrowed 'eyes'. She grinned, as did Speed Queen, and she watched as the Stand's 'eyes' widened. It was fast, sure, but Speed Queen was faster.

" **MADA!"**

Speed Queen's fist crashed onto its right side, making its small body buckling under the pressure of a fist shot faster than a speeding bullet and sending it flying to a nearby mirror. She saw it go _into_ the mirror and kept her ears open for any sound.

"G-ghk..."

It was faint, almost inaudible, but she heard it. She dashed toward it and once close enough, she shot Speed Queen forward, pulled all its power into its right fist and sent out an even _more_ powerful punch toward the wall. "There you are!"

The wall of mirrors shattered, creating a big hole through which she saw the Stand-user. She felt her grin widening as she took in how the Stand-user's silhouette showed that they was nursing the right side of their rib-cage while blood was coming out of their mouth. "Hello there..." The hetero-chromatic eyes within the dark room widened as she Shrouded herself and walked toward her, breaking what remained of the wall in front of her in the process.

The next room was not full of mirrors. It was instead a typical low-cost apartment room, small, dirty and without a good ventilation or even a lot of lights thanks to how the window only showed that it was next to some windowless building and thus the Stand-user is shrouded in shadows. "Just so we're on the same page, here... I didn't mean all those things I said about that cat lady. I was just trying to rile you up and it worked." She had to say that to them at the very least.

"F-fuck you, there's no way that wasn't-!"

"Have you _seen_ what I'm wearing? I'd be a hypocrite if I call anyone an attention whore and mean it. As for calling her a prostitute and a slut that has a lot of kids around, I apologize if that offends you. Still, she _did_ send me here to be locked up by your Stand. For all I know, she's trying to kill my friend and got me here so that _you_ can kill me, so _forgive me_ ifI got a little hot back there. Still, you tried to defend her honor and that's actually quite touching."

"Screw you!" The Stand-user stood up, as short as they were, and glared at her as she heard the sound of mirrors shattering coming from behind her. "I was told to just keep you locked in here and not kill you, but maybe I can just cripple you instead!"

"You're still angry about that?! I already told you that-!" She was cut off by the feeling of being slammed by hundreds of tiny little objects hitting her on the back at the same time, sending her flying toward the shadowed figure, 'What the-?! I thought her Stand is a Possessor-type?!' Her eyes widened as she saw the swarm gathering above the figure into a much bigger humanoid version of the small Stand she saw before. 'Ah shit...! A Hybrid-type!'

It rushed at her in silence and she raised her Shrouded forearms and forced her legs to stop her flight as the Stand began to pummel her. She felt the hits passing by the Shroud. Though smaller in size compared to her let alone Speed Queen, it was fast nonetheless and quite strong... But they weren't enough to cause unbearable pain that would stop her in her tracks. 'Speed Queen... Accelerate.'

She kept her eyes on the barrage of fists coming at her. One second passed and the fists coming at her become fewer in numbers. Another second passed and the number of fists dwindled into just a few and were disappearing one by one. Three seconds went by and all the fists she saw were just two, moving at a 'normal human' pace.

She dashed the Stand, ducking past its moving fists and stopped when she was just an inch away. 'Need to hold back a bit.' In this state, she would hurt them more than she needed to if she didn't control herself. She raised her right fist a bit, pressed it down the Stand's 'stomach' and _pushed_.

The Stand's stomach caved in. She pulled her fist back, went back to her previous position, extended her right hand toward the Stand while she wrapped her left arm around her own waist and let out a slow, long sigh. Using Speed Queen's power always took quite a toll on her body. The feeling was like performing an anaerobic exercise, exerting her body while holding her breath down.

Still, it was too useful to not be used once in a while. "Decelerate."

One second passed. The Stand and the figure behind it began to buckle inward, feeling the pressure of her punch. Two seconds passed. The Stand and the figure began to move up, carried by the force of her punch. Three seconds went by and both of them went _flying,_ crashing through another wall that was behind them. "Gahk!"

She huffed as she walked toward them. " **Mada mada da (It wasn't enough).** If you had used your Stand to swarm me, I would've been in trouble as it can easily overwhelm me. Have you ever been attacked by a swarm of wasps? The pain of their stings can kill you if done hundreds of times continuously in the span of just a few seconds."

Shrouding herself, she walked through yet another hole in the wall and looked down at the small figure who was now wheezing. "But you reacted with anger and used your Stand's humanoid form instead... Which wasn't weak really, but it's nothing compared to my Speed Queen's power." With a sigh, she knelt down and placed her right hand over the clothing that covered their stomach. "Accelerate."

The figure let out a gasp followed by a long groan... "A-aaaaaaahaaaah!" And then they let out a scream and thrash about, swinging their arms and legs and cracking the floor further with their strength. "L-let g-go of meeee!"

With her left hand, she pressed down on the figure's chest. She took note of how soft it felt and for the moment, kept it in the back of her mind to focus on what she was currently doing. "Keep still. It might be painful now, but I'm actually healing you. You'll get better soon."

"H-how is t-this... H-healinggggaaah?!"

"I accelerate the progress of recovery for your wounds. Don't worry, the energy being used isn't _all_ from you, I'm also giving some of mine as well." Otherwise, it would cause severe or even _lethal_ exhaustion for them. A human could only recover so many wounds in their life and to force one to heal by accelerating its progress was basically forcing them to age a bit.

However, she could transfer some of her own energy to share the weight, so to speak and she had no problem sharing it with anyone she healed considering she had quite a lot to spare to begin with. Still... 'I wish mom brought her with us, her Stand is a better healer than mine is...' Speed Queen couldn't actually 'heal' a person per se, it could only 'accelerate' the progress of recovery.

"Y-your hair... It's glowing..."

"Thanks for noticing, I like to keep it as clean as possible.." With the glow of her hair, she finally got a good look on the Stand-user. It was a woman, a rather small woman whose hetero-chromatic eyes of pink and brown is complemented by the same color adorning her long hair. She was fair-skinned and quite pretty as well, which, combined with her short stature actually made her look... quite adorable.

She then pulled her hand away and the woman let out a gasp before she slumped, her body losing any tension as all her energy left her. As her hair began to dim, the shadow in the room began enveloping them again until the room became dark again. "Consider this an apology for saying those things about that cat lady. I _really_ didn't mean it."

"...So... that was really... just to rile me up?" The woman said as she tried to look at her while lying down on her back against the floor.

Finally she got through the woman's mind. What a wonder lack of anger could bring, clearing up one's mind so that they could actually _listen_. Then again, it was partly her fault too. 'I might have gone over the top with what I said...' That much she could admit to herself and thus her healing the Stand-user. Though if the woman she just healed said that she was tasked to trap and kill her instead of only being told to keep her locked in, well...

'Glad I don't have to resort to outright torture...' The woman deserved a bit of mercy from her for only being tasked to keep her in one place. But still, she needed to interrogate her. Luckily Speed Queen's power has already affected her. With a grin, she said; "Yup. It worked _very_ beautifully considering here you are now about to lose consciousness so I can tie you up and wait for you to wake up so that I can interrogate you."

"W-wha...? Wha...t do you... mean... by... tha...?"

She reached out just before the woman's head hit the floor, catching her by the back of her head and scoffed. "Heh. And now the light's off there too." She sighed before looking around at the mess their fight has made. "...Considering the noises we've been making and how the electricity doesn't seem to be on, I guess this place is abandoned... Hm, alright then." It was quite convenient so she couldn't complain.

She took the petite woman by the collar, put her on top of her right shoulder and began to walk toward the door. "Let's find someplace more comfortable, little lady..."

 **I-The Black Cat-I**

From the moment she set her eyes on him, she knew that Jaune Giovanna was as dangerous as he was valuable. He was one of the many things she was tasked to watch over in Niapoli as a part of her six months-time assignment to watch over things in the city and he was the one who made her stay for longer than just half a year.

In Passione, acquiring a Stand is a privilege that one must prove themselves to be worthy of. For her, it was years and years of constant service for the bosses and _The_ Don himself that earned her their trust to be given her Stand. From then on, she was counted as an Enforcer of Passione with yet another privilege of being given bigger responsibilities pertaining to the gang's activities.

Yet there Jaune Giovanna had been, newly inducted, nothing more than an errand boy... Possessing a strong-looking Stand with quite a power. She had a thought that it must've been fate that gave her the assignment to Niapoli on roughly the same day that he joined Passione as its lowest of the low and so she asked her higher-ups to prolong her stay in Niapoli.

It took some dealings under the table with the other members within the city and even requesting it to the Don himself which took quite a long while but she got it. A permanent residence, a 'front' to have meetings in and her friends of her cell were even along for the ride... Such a big change and all for the sake of watching this one young man.

On paper, Jaune Giovanna was nothing special even considering his sheer physical stature. As is expected of Mistralian Orphans, he became involved in criminal activities ever since he was a kid and at the age of fifteen, he is formally inducted into the gang as... a tribute-giver. He was basically an errand boy who is given the task to give them a certain amount of money every month in exchange for protection from he law and freedom to do almost anything in certain parts of the city.

Still, he was diligent in his work, polite and he never caused any trouble for the police, the gang or even the citizens so he never got into the higher-ups' radar. Quite ironic, she once thought, that a person who grew up so big and filled out so well to be beneath most people's notice. She had checked with the rest of the gang in the city and out of all of them, she and those she considered her close and personal friends were the only ones who were keeping eyes on him.

So for two years, she kept watch over him to get a feel of his personality, his desires, everything... But he was good in keeping them close to his chest. Other than his Stand which she only knew because he didn't know she even existed and watched him from afar, the one thing that stood out was the way he treated the orphan children of Niapoli.

Perhaps it had been going on since before he entered Passione, but the orphan children in Niapoli respected him as they would a figure of authority. In turn, he treated them as if he was their big brother, a relationship that turned out to be symbiotic as they actually worked for him as his informants. He knew the value of children who were often looked over by many adults yet he also treated them with kindness and compassion... Even if he did make them do things that could be said as illegal at times.

He also protected the children from elements that would hurt the children's livelihood, especially with drugs. So out of respect for that, she chose to leave him alone and told her friends to do the same thing, which they acceded to, trusting her judgment on things. Though they were a bit worried about her lying to her higher-ups in her reports that involved him, they nonetheless followed her request to the letter.

Then, after two uneventful years, two mysterious Stand-users came to Niapoli with one of them showing off hers all over the streets of the city. It was fortunate that the only Stand-using cell in Niapoli was hers so it didn't make it into the news circulation within the gang members in the city but she knew that she had to see through it, to face Jaune and ask him directly about the Huntresses.

In doing so, perhaps she could know more about him as well. For two years he had been nothing more than someone she had to keep watch, but perhaps there was more to him than what she has read in his files, especially with the two new elements in the city? It was with that thought that she partnered up with one of her friends, snuck into the tram when he was with one of the Huntresses, take her out of the equation and leave him all to herself.

And now, here she was... Looking at her Stand's fist and forearm phasing through Jaune's head. "...What the...?" She pulled her Stand's hand back and inspected it, "I didn't activate its power..." She just wanted to punch his lights out a bit. After he so brazenly lied about his disloyalty and with a look that _dared_ her to find out that he was lying, there was no other appropriate response.

Yet her Stand phased through him. She looked at him again... and he was silent as he kept looking at her, as still as a statue. "...What did you do...?" Was this his Stand's doing? 'But its power is to turn inanimate objects into living things. How could his Stand...?'

She then watched as he began to move... Slowly. So slow that it was almost agonizing. 'Wait... His Stand... It could give life to inanimate objects...' Realization hit her like the feeling of morning's sunlight bathing her body, 'He gives that same 'Life' to me, but since I'm already alive, he's only augmenting me!'

Looking down at herself, she then realized that she felt... Alive. It was as if she just drank several shots of espresso in one go right after having a deep eight-hour sleep and a filling, nutritious breakfast. Her body felt lighter, stronger... 'Did he try to push me away using his Stand but augmented me in the process?' She grinned. Such a rookie mistake, he must've panicked and gotten desperate. 'If so, then don't mind me using it on you!' Closing her right hand into a fist, she drew it back-

"H-hm?" Wait. Hold on a minute... Her Stand's hand... it was still in front of his face. But... didn't she just move it? '...No...' Dread came down her spine like she was doused with a bucket of cold water. As he pushed off her hands in slow motion, she knew that he _meant_ to grab her. 'He didn't augment everything! My senses are overloaded with life so everything seems slow, but my body isn't keeping up!'

Still, she had to try! She leaped back... And she saw her own back as she went further back. 'W-what?!' She stopped, looked down and saw that she was floating. She was flying, but... 'O-out of body experience...? Or am I just... imagining this?' It was like a lucid dream. Was this the result of being overloaded with 'Life'? Looking back at where her body was, she saw Jaune standing up. 'I-I have to... move my body...!'

She could feel her body, even 'out of it' as she was now, but there was this gap between her mind and her body and she couldn't make a bridge to connect each other with. Her body couldn't respond to anything she wanted it to do. 'S-shit...! In this state, even just one second of a punch would feel like minutes! And with how full of 'Life' my body is, the pain's magnitude will be multipled several times too...!'

She 'flew' back to her body to try Shrouding herself with it, but she couldn't force her body to move or do anything like she wanted it to. 'Shit shit shit shit shit...!' Looking at him, he was now priming his Stand for a punch as he was saying something to her. In her current state, she could only hear the intelligible low drone noises that was his warped voice. 'Damn it, move! Move!'

The Stand's fist moved toward her body's face. It was fast, faster than she thought it would be... But it was still so slow. She could see it coming and there was nothing she could do but to stay and let it happen. 'This... this is torture...! Jaune Giovanna, to think your Stand could be used in such a manner...!' Even in dread, she couldn't help but to feel awed.

Then, its knuckles touched her cheek. It moved so slowly but in 'real time', it moved with such force that as soon as it went deeper, she could feel it caving her cheek in. 'G-guh...!' Every small movements the fist made, every fraction of a second in which her teeth was being ground upon by the golden diamond-hard knuckles, every feeling of pain that was spreading throughout her entire face as her jaw was being forced to move in a manner it's not supposed to, all of it were extended to feel like it took a minute for every second.

'G-ggrrrkkkk!' It felt like an eternity for the punch to be finished as it even went to her nose and began to bend it under its pressure. It was a torture of the highest degree that she had never experienced before. She thought she knew what _pain_ was, but this was at another level she didn't know existed... And there was nothing she could do except to ride it out. There was no escape or even a moment of reprieve.

Then, after a hellish eternity, she was finally sent flying. Mid-air, she felt her mind and body reconnecting again... Just in time for her body to hit the wall and fell down just as hard. "G-guhk..." Everything hurt. And if that wasn't enough, the sheer shock that he gave her was so much that she was actually shaking. "U-uuuuugh...!" Her nerves were going into overdrive and she could barely think. "Guhuuuh...!" She couldn't even speak as her nostrils was dripping out blood.

Still, she slammed her hands onto the tram's floor and pushed herself up. Once on her knees, she raised her right leg, putting her right foot on the floor and pushed.. "Guh!" Only for her right leg to shake, making her slam her right shoulder on the wall when she was half-way up. "Puh-P-Paint-ted Black Cat-t...!" Shrouding herself with her Stand gave her a bit of needed boost to push herself off the wall and stood on her own two feet... Even if her shoulders were a bit slumped and her knees a bit bent as she couldn't bring herself up straight.

Looking at where his seat was, she saw that he had left it. He was now standing on the tram's aisle. His right hand was on his right hip and his head is tilted a bit upward while his eyes were looking down, directed right at her. A haughty angel was coming down to meet her.

"You're still standing..." The angel spoke, "Then again, I expected as much. One punch, even done in such a state, won't bring you down. No, perhaps ten would do it. Or a hundred? A thousand, perhaps? Let us test your durability, shall we? Ms. Belladonna?"

...No. Another punch like that, and she'd be out of it completely, she would either die or be in a coma. Her mind was _still_ reeling and her body hadn't stopped shaking. But... She could still use her Stand. 'I need to get out of here...' Run, hide, recuperate then ambush him again in another place with her friends. He wasn't loyal to Passione and those two Huntresses could be suspect as well. Even if they were his family, they still needed to be taken care of.

So with that in mind... "Painted Black Cat." She shot her Stand toward him and once he brought out his, she smiled and fell down to her own shadow.

She couldn't go far though. "Oof!" Her control over her own Stand's power was still a bit frayed thanks to that last attack. Falling down right beneath the tram wasn't ideal but it wasn't as inescapable as before. She kept herself low and crawled away until she could stand up again and then, she began to run.

She winced. Her legs were still a bit wobbly even with her Shrouding herself. 'Such power... I might need more time to recuperate than I thought...' She cast Painted Black Cat as a shadow on the wall of a nearby building and slipped in before coming out on the other side of the wall. "Excuse me." It wouldn't hurt to be courteous to the family that was eating when she came in.

She ran past them, cast a shadow and slipped in and out. She continued to do so, going from one building to another before she found herself in a public toilet. She went inside one of the stalls, closed the door and sat down. "This all went to shit, didn't it...?" She sighed before she cast another shadow on the stall's wall, put her hand in and took out a Scroll.

Opening the phone app, she pressed a familiar set of numbers before pressing it on her right ear. The beeping sound continued to ring and ring until it was picked up. "Neo, it's me. How's our prisoner doing?"

There was only silence. It lasted for a few seconds, far longer than her friend would usually take to answer a question... "...Neo?" The phone is answered yet her friend wasn't talking. Who was listening on the other side? "...Neo." It couldn't be... How could that happen? Neo's Stand should be enough to hold the Huntress at bay with its many abilities! "...You bitch."

" _Why that's just_ _**rude-**_ _"_

She hung up the moment she heard the voice that didn't belong to Neo and began to dial another set of numbers. 'Neo's compromised. Luckily, I have the others on standby just in case-'

It came with a faint sound of whistling wind as it swooped down from above her and stung her right forearm with its stinger. For a second, she could only remain still as she looked at the hornet whose stinger was now embedded deep in her skin... Then, as she finally registered it, the pain followed suit.

"Kyyaaaaaaaagghhh!" Her nerves reacted before her mind could and her Scroll fell down to the floor before she could even use it to call a friend. "S-shit!" She Shrouded herself, reached out to the hornet, grabbed it, tightened her grip before she pulled it out, stingers and all. Then, in her hand, it turned into a tooth. _Her_ tooth, one that had been knocked out by his punch. "H-he can use my body parts turned into an animal as a tracker..."

She then heard the sound of an insect buzzing. Looking up, she saw that another hornet was coming down toward her. 'Like hell I'm going to be stung again!' Now that she was Shrouded, she would be able to protect herself from the stings. She manifested Painted Black Cat's arm and faster than the hornet could fly, it caught the bug in its grip.

Immediately, she squeezed it, breaking it apart. "Hmph." She opened her Stand's hand, letting the pieces fall down... And saw that it had been turned into numerous fragments of what used to be a kitchen knife. "Hm?" Midway, the small pieces transformed into bees that immediately flew toward her face before changing back into sharp sharp knife fragments carried by the momentum of the bees' flight.

"Hm!" She moved her Shrouded right forearm up and down, blocking the flying sharp fragments... But she didn't hear the clanging sound of them bouncing off of her. Then, she felt things crawling on her skin. "T-this guy...!" By recycling the things he turned back and forth, he could maintain pressure on his enemy. She moved her right forearm away from her face and saw a number of big ant soldiers with big, menacing mandibles crawling up her skin. "G-grrrr!"

She summoned Painted Black Cat's form, lacking a right forearm and hand, to loom over her. **"ARIRIRIRIRI!"** With its left hand, it went and grab all the ants in quick succession within a single second, squeezed them then threw them upon her shadow. She quickly turned it with her Stand's power and it sank down, disappearing into the blackness.

Reaching down, she grabbed her Scroll before she cast a shadow on the wall behind her and ran out again, passing by a hallway, a kitchen, then she opened the shadow to an alley right beside the building...

" **MUDA!"**

A familiar golden fist was ready to meet her face as soon as she poked her head out of the shadow. She gritted her teeth before she touched her own neck, opening up a shadow and partly cut her own neck with it to let her head slump down to the left, avoiding the would-be lethal punch. She then rolled out of the shadow and went past the Stand-user.

She immediately put back her head to how it was before, cut off the shadow on her neck and took a moment to breathe. He was standing in front of her now Shrouded with his Stand. "...I have to admit... you're quite a tough man..."

"Thank you." She couldn't help but to notice how sincere he seemed as he nodded. Calm, serene, controlled... It was both terrifying and and awe-inspiring to behold. He was younger than she was by a couple of years and yet it was as if he was born with such powerful _**[resolve]**_ that felt almost otherworldly.

"I have to admit... You are much more formidable than I thought you'd be." Still... She got him. She got him and he didn't even notice. "By the way... Does your leg feel itchy?" He blinked, glanced down and once again, she saw him sweat as his eyes widened when he saw a shadow, _her_ shadow, was slowly encircling his left ankle. "I have you now, Jaune Giovanna!"

She opened up a gap cast by the shadow and down from the ankle, his left foot is separated from his left leg. He came tumbling down from the sudden lack of balance and she stomped the ground with her Shroud-powered dash that got her close to him in just a single second. With Painted Black Cat, she rushed her Stand's arms at him with the intent to hurt...

" **ARRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRI!"**

With each punches, lines of shadow emerged and enveloped his body, segmenting themselves in crisscross manner. **"ARI!"** Then, with a last punch, he flew backward for several feet and landing on the ground with several loud thuds, making her smile as she snapped her fingers. "Arrivederci. Hmph, though I supposed I'm being too early." It wasn't the end, not yet. She walked toward him and saw how he now looked, "Finally, I got you... Jaune Giovanna."

Halfway toward him, she caught a glimpse of... something slumped against the wall. She turned her head to the right and took in what was lying there on the ground. She didn't even see it before until she got close enough with how small it was and how it's shadowed by the alley. The sight made her feet stall for a second as her eyes couldn't help but to focus on it. Was what she was seeing real?

...Even if it was, it didn't matter. Not now, when she had a job to do. She turned her head away from it to look ahead once again. Resuming her steps, she spoke... "Jaune Giovanna... What is it that you are planning with those two huntresses, hm?" In a matter of seconds, she loomed over him, looking at the state he was now in, "Was it really 'family matters'?"

He was separated into numerous segments, connected only by Painted Black Cat's shadow power. "You must be light-headed by now, but I know you can hear me just fine." She knew from experience that he must be feeling a form of disconnection with his limbs that made him barely able to compute, thus the reason why he was sweating hard, breathing heavily with eyes opened wider than normal.

She counted at least thirty separated body parts haphazardly strewn about while his head is still connected to his torso which was separated into seven sections. With how frayed his mind was, she knew that he wasn't able to move properly. She knelt down on one knee and grabbed her chin, "Then again... Considering that you just said that you're not loyal to Passione... I don't have to hear the truth of the matter. Any last words?"

"...Yes." She felt her left eye twitched. How could he still be calm after what she did to him? Still, it didn't matter, not anymore, he was at her mercy now. "Can you... find my left hand please?"

She frowned and looked around. Having seen no left hand in her view, she stood up and took a step back in front of him to have a better view... And she found no left hand amongst the strewn body parts... "...Where did you-?"

Then, she felt something landing on the back of her neck, something that felt... hairy and had many limbs. Her eyes widened. It was a big spider! But where did it-?! Then, she felt it change as it was still on top her: Its limbs became fewer but bigger in size, it lost all of its hair and then... it wrapped all of its five 'limbs' on her neck.

"S-shi-!" Then she felt it again, the feeling of being filled with life. "Crap...!" The world became slow once again as she lost her ability to control her body. "H-he... He changed his left hand into a spider and hid it on the walls, but when did he-?" She stopped as she remembered what she did right before she got to him, a moment of weakness overtook her and that was all it took for him to steal a chance.

But still, her Stand should be... '...No, I lost control of it!' She could only watch as his body parts began to gravitate back, merging with one another to become whole again. 'B-but how? I-?!' She then realized it. The hand holding her neck. 'H-he could control the things he feeds with Life...! Crap...!' The tables had once again been turned and she was out of turns to play her cards...

Slowly but surely, he became whole again... Save for his left hand. 'No! I-if he punched me again...!' That pain she felt... She wasn't ready to feel it again and this time, he might not stop after just one punch. 'I-I'll die...! There's no escaping this, I'll-!'

He approached her. Every step was like a stomp from a Goliath coming for her. His purple eyes bore into her and the serene look on his face... This was it, this was her last moment, her last day... Today was the day of her death. 'G-guh...!' She could only watch as she drew closer and closer and closer and she couldn't even close her eyes shut! 'Ggaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!'

Then, as he was close enough to her... He went to her left and walked past her. '...H-huh?' Then, that feeling of being overwhelmed with 'Life' disappeared, allowing her to move again. She turned to face him... And saw him kneeling down in front of what she had seen before. "...J-Jaune Giovanna! What the hell are yo-?!"

"You could've killed me there." His voice, deep, calm and... almost soothing, made her close her lips, silencing her. He didn't even look at her as he focused on what he was doing. "Had you stay focused on me, I would have died. I only managed to get my left hand on your neck because of a second, a moment of hesitation on your part. That's all it took and I'm glad for that... Because not only was it fortunate of me, that moment showed me something worth protecting in you."

She flinched as her body involuntarily leaned back. Of all the things he could say to her... "...What nonsense are you talking about?"

For a moment, he didn't say anything but his hands were moving, rummaging. Then, he took out a wallet, unfolded it and said... "Diamonte Luccio, age 12. A student of one of Niapoli's public school. He seems to have both parents providing for him, yet here he is, out of his mind. No doubt he just had an injection."

She clenched her fists and bit her lip as she looked away. So it was true. Not only was the drug addict lying on the ground and slumped against the wall was a boy far younger than herself but he wasn't even an orphan who is consumed by drugs out of despair. She wanted to believe that it was just her eyes playing tricks on her, that a young boy wouldn't be so gaunt with unkempt hair, uneven teeth and was so thin that the baggy tattered clothes looked too big on him.

She tried to convince herself that what she saw wasn't real and that it didn't matter. "You saw him and you stopped. If it weren't for that, I'd be dead by now. Tell me, why did you stop?"

She turned back to glare at him as he was putting back the wallet where he found it: Inside the kid's pocket... And then, there he was now, looking at her with those purple eyes of his. "...What's it to you?" She had no reason to spill her heart to him, even if he-

"You're a good person."

Her heart skipped a beat. There was no condescension nor sarcasm in his tone, and that smile... It felt so genuine that it made her feel as if someone was squeezing her heart. After all she did, how could he say such a thing with such a face? Just because she had a moment of weakness?

"The sight of this boy made you stop because it shocked you. You saw his condition, you saw how small and gaunt he was and it stopped you in your tracks because you are appalled by it. You know what you saw was not right, that it _shouldn't be_ yet it was and it offended you, it angered you." He stood up and said; "Despite the fact that you're in Passione, you are against selling drugs to children. That is why you're a good person."

She scowled as she felt her blood burning... But almost none of its heat were directed at the man in front of her. "...It's not good business. Everyone is free to do what they please as long as they keep in mind the consequences of their actions. If they want to do drugs, then it's their right to dabble with the dangers and the perceived benefits. However, children aren't... They're not a profitable market, they can't even have a job yet, they're not sustainable source of income."

"Yet I've seen Passione members giving 'samples' to children." Was his rebuttal as he put his right hand inside the pocket of his trousers, "Drugs are not toys, they're not inherently attractive to children's eyes. They won't ask their parents for them unless they've gotten hooked first and once they are, they'll do anything to get them. But in the end, forcing them dry won't yield the same result as say, selling drugs to thrill-seeking well-off adults... But I think you know very well that what these dealers seek are not profits."

...She couldn't meet his eyes. That gaze of his became intense when he accused Passione of doing such a heinous and unforgivable crime... One that she couldn't deny, at least in the safety and privacy of her own mind. Just thinking of it was enough to make her feel sick, to say it out loud...

"These dealers only have one specific target demographic: _Human children_. Be they orphans or not, it doesn't matter, they are only selling drugs to them, hooking them with a free sample and then destroying them afterward. This boy," He gestured to the boy who was still out of it, "is one of their victims and from how he looks, it's too late to save him. There is an agenda at play here, wouldn't you agree?"

"...Yes." She wasn't blind to what was going on in her gang. Being a Faunus was easy when one was a part of Passione. In the gang, duty was all that mattered. Though the humans of the group weren't treated differently, she couldn't deny that there was something going on in the background that horrified her the first time she figured it out. "I've suspected this for a while now, but this doesn't change anything." She pointed at him and she growled, "You revealed your lack of loyalty to the gang. No matter what you say or do, I am obligated to kill you as an Enforcer."

"No." The two-letter word stopped her in her tracks. "You won't kill me."

She put her hand down and... Stared at him. That was all she could do when being faced with such a brazen declaration. Was he crazy? To say something that sounded so genuine as if he was certain of what he said despite the situation that he was now in... She couldn't help but to be intrigued a bit by this audacity of his. "...And why is that, Jaune Giovanna?"

"Because you will be my ally."

Yet again, he spoke such a ludicrous thing. What was she supposed to say to that?

"I, Jaune Giovanna, have a dream." With his right hand, he grabbed his right collar and pulled it to the right, exposing more of his collar bone and chest as he slumped his left shoulder and tilted his head up, "That one day, I will usurp Passione's Don and become the gang's new boss."

Her eyes widened, "W-what?!" She heard it, she knew she did, there was no mistaking it, but to see him say it so brazenly without even blinking... "Are you serious?!"

"Yes." His response was immediate. "It is true that I hold no loyalty to Passione. As it is now, the gang doesn't deserve to have it. If Niapoli is only a sample of what's being done in many other cities in Mistral, then the gang as a whole needs to change. This kind of policy of peddling drugs to just human children, it must start at the utmost top. For a change to be made, for the mafioso of Mistral to become what it used to be, the protectors of the people instead of predators of the weak, the change must come from the top. _I_ will be the change it needs."

"...You..." It should sound stupid. It was ridiculous, someone younger than she was, talking about becoming the Don of Passione? It should be a comedy worth of mockery, worth being parodied... Yet she couldn't stop the feeling of awe that overwhelmed her. There was madness in him, what else could it be that could drive a man to be so genuine and passionate? Yet this madness... This insanity, this ludicrousness...

She wanted in. She wanted to be a part of it. He was a beam of light in the dark that gave her a sense of hope, that there was a chance to make things right again... Still, she had to rein herself. "Jaune Giovanna... This dream, this golden dream... It's beautiful I must admit." That much she could admit, "However! The path that leads to it will not be easy to take! Hell, you're not even at the starting line yet! You are lowest of the low with little chance to reach even _half of the way_. I'll ask you one more time... Are you serious about this? Are you going to do whatever it takes to take over the rein of Passione?"

"Yes. They must be stopped and nothing else other than a change of leadership will suffice. One way or another, I _will_ become _The_ Gangstar!"

"Very well!" She felt his passion burning within her as well, as if his words were winds that carried over the flame in his heart to hers. "From now on, I will be your ally. I'm going to bet on that golden dream of yours." At that, she felt the hand on the back of her neck loosening its grip before it gravitated back to his left wrist and reconnected itself with it. "Now... quid pro quo, Jaune... Will you now tell me the truth about those two huntresses and yourself?"

 **II-Yang Xiao Long-II**

She couldn't help but to grin as she looked away from the Scroll in her hand to the the woman she had lying in front of her, on top of the bed she had put her onto. "Neo, huh? That's a nice name." She had no doubt that the woman who called was the cat faunus even though the number was not in the petite woman's Scroll contact list, which had very few contact information to begin with anyway.

She had the woman dead to rights, Neo was now bound by her arms and her knee-length white leather boots-covered feet with bent steel from the bed she was now on top of. Said bed also lacked railings on the side of its head and foot. "Neo Neo Neo..." She couldn't stop grinning after hearing the way the cat faunus talked. No doubt Jaune had gotten to her, beaten her and she called the Neo woman to ask for back-up.

Too bad for her, she had already called a back-up of her own. She leaned back against the chair she was sitting on, put down the Scroll inside her turtleneck shirt, right between her cleavage and crossed her arms, "I can't wait for you to wake up."

"You _could_ try to be a little less excited about the thought of roughing her up, Yang."

Guilty as charged. She looked to the right, tilted her head up a bit to meet her mother's silver eyes and shrugged, "We're going to hurt her a little bit though, right?"

"Of course, but you look too giddy Yang, I can't trust you to rein yourself during it." Once again, her mother spoke in that commanding tone, her voice low, even and delivered with such calmness that it would make anyone, especially her, _listen_.

"Fine..." She let out a sigh. Her mother was right though, she had a tendency to go overboard. Still, that didn't mean that it won't be fun. "Let's do the ol' _good cop bad cop_ routine. I'll be the bad cop if you're going to lead."

"Focus, Yang."

She winced. "...Sorry. I was just trying to lighten things up. I know how big this is." One Stand-user using its power to trap her was one thing, but two working together suggested a sense of organization and camaraderie. Not to mention the fact that they succeeded too. It was as if these two women knew they were also dealing with a Stand-user.

A sigh came out of her mother's lips as she looked at the dual-colored haired woman lying on the bed as she crossed her arms while also cupping her chin. "...I wonder if..." The words came out as a mumble but she heard it enough. Wonder what? The Stand-user? Ah, the source of their Stands?

'Hm... Now that I think about it, this is quite a coincidence.' She didn't think that she'd be meeting any other Stand-user other than Jaune in Niapoli let alone having a Stand fight with one of them, 'Though...' All that talk about destiny was still stuck in her head. "...What are you thinking, mom?"

Her mother glanced at her for a moment before she turned back to the girl. "I have a suspicion about who this Neo girl and that cat faunus are... It's likely that they targeted you and Jaune because you showed off Speed Queen everywhere, but that alone wouldn't warrant what is basically an attack."

"...So you're thinking that the reason why they attacked me and Jaune... Is because we're Stand-users." No, that couldn't be it. It wasn't reason enough to plan an attack on them and then execute it. "Or..." A thought occurred to her then, something that made her feel her blood rushing faster, "Or is it because that we're Stand-users... Who aren't a part of their group?"

"Precisely. It's just my gut feeling, but I suspect that there's something going on in this city and that this Stand-user woman along with the cat faunus were just the tip of the iceberg." She let out a sigh before she gritted her teeth as she rubbed her forehead, "I know it's just a gut feeling, there's no basis in it, there's no reason to what I'm feeling, but... I can't exactly ignore it."

...Her mother had always taught her that as a Stand-user, there were times when your gut feeling would fight against your ability to reason. However, when that happened, never ignore or fight it off. More often than not, it was because your soul was sensing something was up.

A Stand-user was more attuned to the inner workings of the universe than those who only had their Aura let alone those who had none at all and thus, a Stand-user's 'gut feeling' could be said as a limited form of clairvoyance to sense some sort of premonition.

Having heard her mother said that, she looked at the woman again and with a sigh, she stood up. "I'm going to wake her up now." She walked past her mother, loom over the unconscious woman and summoned Speed Queen. Her Stand loomed above her as it then reached down to the woman's chest, right where her heart was, and it touched it with the tip of its index finger.

"Accelerate."

A second passed, and the woman twitched. Another second later, her eyes went wide open as she let out a gasping... "AAAAAAAAHHHH!" ...scream as she thrashed about.

"Decelerate." Then, she had Speed Queen pull back its hand before calling it off. A second passed and the woman started to stop thrashing. Another second later, she stopped thrashing altogether and sat up with wide eyes looking around her.

Looking at her flat and toned stomach left exposed by her long-sleeved white suit, she could see her sweating quite profusely as a result of what she did. The sweat was even starting to soak the pantsuit she was wearing, staining its pink-with-white-stripes coloration sporadically. "W-what the...?"

"Neo. That's your name, right?" Cutting straight to the chase was the way to go here. She stood in front of her, looming over the petite woman to keep her eyes on her and prevent her from seeing her mother right behind her, keeping her as a back-up. "Mind telling us _why_ you targeted Jaune and me?"

"Y-you..." She tried to move her hands and legs before she is met with the steely resistance wrapped around said limbs, "...Huh." The woman looked at the steel keeping her in place before she let out a sigh, "...You know, I was only told to keep you locked in. You're not the one we wanted, that boy Jaune was."

"And why is that?" She had an assumption then, a far out there assumption, but it was more likely to be the case than not.

"Because we saw him interacting with you and one other. Two Huntresses who we do not know anything about... And as a member of our gang, that warrants an investigation."

"A gang, huh?" She was correct in her assumption after all. "What is this gang's name?"

The woman looked at her in the eye with raised eyebrows and she saw how the woman's hetero-chromatic eyes seemed to switch colors between each other, "...You're pretty new, aren't you?" The petite woman was looking at her as if she was seeing her for the first time, "How old are you? Are you really a Huntress?"

She scowled at the implication about her that the woman was giving with her attitude, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"No Huntsmen or Huntresses worth their salt would know next to nothing about the criminal elements of the Kingdoms, especially with Mistral." The woman then smiled at her as if she was mocking her, "Despite how you look, you're actually pretty young, huh?"

She grinned back. If the woman wanted to play with fire... "Why thank you. Unlike you, my genes are kind enough to give me not just a hot body, but also enough height to not be a jailbait." She had to admit, Neo was very shapely for someone of her height, "So as a youngster, I have to ask my _senior_ to enlighten me. Which gang do you belong to?"

The woman smiled less then. It wasn't as much of a sore spot that she hoped it was, but it was enough to rile her up a bit and get her back on track. "...Passione. Got it memorized now?"

She nodded. Not only was Jaune a criminal, he was a part of a gang, one that seemed to be big enough that the Huntsman community knew about, perhaps even to the point that some of them in Mistral were _paid_ by the gang. "So that cat faunus sent me here using her Stand so that you'll lock me up with yours while she interrogates Jaune about his connection to us... But it was more than that, isn't it?"

She summoned Speed Queen back and the woman flinched, "Not only did you seek him out because you want him to 'fess up about why he's meeting with us, but because I walked around showing off my Stand. How many Stand-users do you have in Passione?"

The woman scowled and went silent as she glared at her. At this, she let out a sigh. "...You know, I was thinking about roughing you up to fess' up but... I want to try something else." She smiled as she tilted her chin upward and looked down at her, "How good of a poker face do you have, Neo?"

Neo didn't answer, which was to be expected really. She stepped to the left, letting the petite woman see her mother, and a glance at her face rewarded her with a wide-eyed look on the woman's face. "How about this for a guess?" She turned to the woman whose attention was now drawn to her again. She then Shrouded herself and said... "There are quite a number of Stand-users in your gang, but they're not in the majority. Stands are only given to those who are decided by their higher-ups or maybe even _the dear leader_ to be worthy of it. Then, they are put through some form of ritual or trial to get their Stand... One that involved... an ornate sharp weapon."

A twitch of the eyelids and the edges of her lips clued her in to how correct she was and she continued, "Once given a Stand, these users, including yourself, are tasked to be the gang's... Internal Affairs department, which was why you two were going after Jaune. People like you are the ones who keep the gang members in line with your powers. How am I doing so far?"

The woman's scowl deepened and she knew that she either hit the bullseye or was close enough to score really high, "...I really underestimated you."

"Is it the blonde hair?" She grinned as she flipped her long locks behind her, "Is that why you underestimated me? Because you thought I'm just a blonde bimbo who likes to flaunt my great body? Stereotypes and prejudices, they are quite hard to overcome, aren't they?"

"I think that's enough antagonizing, Yang." She glanced at her mother and the smile on her face was enough to make change her grin into a less toothy smile.

"Yeah yeah..." She waved her mother off as the older woman then stepped toward Neo. She crossed her arms and let her mother take the rein from her.

"To tell you the truth, Neo, we were meeting with Jaune because he's family." Her mother took the role of 'good cop' quite well with her softer tone, "We didn't even know that he's a member of a gang as big as Passione is." So Passione was _that_ much of a big deal? "We were planning to just leave after a couple of days' stay and had you left Jaune alone for a couple more days, we would have left and would've remained ignorant about the fact that Passione have Stand-users in their ranks. Your hastiness revealed yourself to us."

Those soft words, spoken in such a kind, motherly tone, turned the woman's scowl full of anger into a face contorted by embarrassment and regret. 'Who's supposed to be the bad cop here, mom?' It was one thing to antagonize the one being interrogated, but to bring them low with such a few words was another form of art that she had yet to master.

"And considering that he's family, we can't, in good conscience, just let this be. I won't going to ask you to betray your fellow gang members, but rest assured, if you're going to kill him, I'll be sure to beat you to the punch." Her mother then smiled as she Shrouded herself, "And I will fight all of Passione myself if I have to."

There it was. The threat loomed in the air and Neo was looking at her mother like she was insane. 'Seriously, aren't you supposed to be the good cop, mom?' Still, it wasn't as if she could ask that out loud...

Her breasts vibrated then. She looked down, reached into her shirt from beneath it, took out the Scroll and looked at its screen. She grinned at the sight of the familiar set of numbers and then she pressed the green button on the screen before turning on the loudspeaker.

" _Yang Xiao Long, this is Blake Belladonna."_ She lost her grin. What the hell? How did this woman-? _"Jaune Giovanna and I have come to an agreement, we are no longer enemies. Do not harm Neo, we will be there shortly."_

The line is cut off and for a while, she could only stare at the Scroll. She expected Jaune to call using the Scroll, not... _that_. She looked up and saw that her mother and Neo shared this look of confusion that had them creasing their brows and opening up their mouths a bit.

What the _fuck_ was-?

 **II-The Summer Star-II**

Silence. Since that phone call, no one, not even herself, wanted to or _could_ talk and/or speak. She didn't expect what that woman Blake Belladonna said over the phone, neither could the woman named Neo but she chose to act accordingly.

Despite having been freed, the woman remained on the bed, as silent and still as she and her daughter were. For now, they have decided to wait until Blake and Jaune came into this place to explain what was going on.

Looking at her daughter who was leaning back against the wall across from the bed, she saw her getting antsy with the way she crossed her arms and tapped her foot, and she sympathized. What happened between the two? What could make a member of a gang as infamous as Passione to suddenly stop what she was supposed to be doing and become friends with the guy they were after? Her daughter wanted answers and she felt the same way.

The petite Neo on the other hand, was anxious. She looked confused as she sat on the side of the bed she had been lying on and she could sympathize with her over that as well. One moment, she was acting under the assumption that their target was an enemy and now their target has become... Their ally? It didn't make sense and the way she was tilting her head down with unseeing hetero-chromatic eyes told her this.

The lull in a situation that had been going tensely was the worst. This wasn't a battle in which she was waiting for the enemy to attack or to try and find out the best time to attack back, but here she was waiting for an answer to why the situation suddenly deescalated. What was going on between Jaune and the faunus woman?

Then the sound of the door being knocked three times echoed in the room. She looked up as it was being opened and a cat faunus woman stepped in first followed by her great-granduncle. She had to admit, the young woman was quite stunning, not just with her natural looks and her choice of dress, but with the way she carried herself, back straight, arms steady on the sides and her gaze focused.

The faunus' golden eyes then scanned the room, lingered for longer than a second on her while her daughter and the woman named Neo is given only a split-second of her penetrating gaze. While she was doing so, Jaune walked past her and stood to Yang's left. She herself was to her daughter's right with the petite woman sitting on the bed to her right.

"...Miss Summer Rose and Miss Yang Xiao Long I presume?" The cat faunus put her right hand above her left breast and bowed a bit, "My name's Blake Belladonna. Pleased to meet you." Then, she straightened her back again before turning to Yang, "Miss Xiao Long, I apologize for what I did before. I was doing my duty as an Enforcer of Passione."

"Yeah yeah, don't sweat it." Her daughter dismissed the woman's apology before turning to Jaune, "What the hell is going on here?"

The faunus, Blake, turned to Jaune, and he nodded, "Blake has become my ally." She saw her daughter opening her mouth again but she stopped when Jaune raised his hand, "Calm down Yang. She saw me talking to you two, Stand-using Huntresses who were not a part of Passione, and she acted in a manner that befits her duty. However, in the middle of our fight, we found a common ground, one solid enough for us to become allies."

"And what is his common ground, Jaune?" She had to ask. What could possibly stop a gang member from attacking a member they were suspicious of? What did Jaune offer the woman in return for her to become his ally?

"Both of us cannot stand the fact that human children of Niapoli, perhaps all of human children in Mistral, are being targeted by the gang's drug dealers."

Her eyes widened. Her blood burned as it went all over her body, her brain caught on fire and she felt herself closing her hands into fists. "...What...?" She heard her own voice yet she couldn't really recognize it for a moment. It sounded like a breathy growl, a voice of hers that she had not heard since...

"Passione has an agenda at play, Miss Summer." Jaune's calm voice soothed her a bit even as he spoke of such an unforgivable crime, "One that Blake and I intend to stop. That is why she is now my ally."

"H-hold the fuck up." Her daughter said. She looked at her and saw her hair beginning to flare up, lighting up the room in a bright golden glow, "Are you... really saying... that these gang members are actually selling drugs... to just _human_ children?" Her voice was calm, cold to the ears... But she knew that her daughter's blood was _boiling_.

"Yes." The cat faunus, Blake, said. "Jaune and I have seen them firsthand, both the dealers and the victims, one of them... being very recently. It's been happening for quite a long time now."

"I see..." Calm. She needed to be calm. She drew all her mental strength to cool down her heart and blood so that she could be as impartial as possible, "Then what is it that convinced you to be his ally, Ms. Belladonna?"

The cat faunus' left eyebrow rose up as she turned to Jaune, "You haven't told them about it?"

"I haven't. I've only met them today after all." He then sighed as his shoulders slumped down a bit, "Still, there's no escaping this now." When he looked up to meet her, Yang and Neo, it was with his shoulders up, his back straight and his hands on his hips. "To stop what Passione is doing, it needs to be changed from up-top. From today onwards, both of us will make that happen. It will be a long road, but both of us will walk it together... To stop the corruption of Passione, to prevent more children destroying their own lives... And for me to realize my dream and become the new Don of Passione."

...For a moment, she could only stare at him. Did she even hear that right? That Jaune... just declared that he was going to become the Don of Passione?

Passione was a staple name in Mistral going back for several hundreds of years but its existence was never written in the official history books. Before the solidification of society, back in the age when the only form of civilization that existed were the Frontiers surrounded by the dangerous Wilds, they were the protectors of the people of what would become Romulus, the capital of Mistral.

Then, as civilization became modernized through the discovery of Dust and it subsequent industrialization, instead of fully reforming itself to become a legitimate authority system, Passione receded into the shadows, becoming the foundation on which 'legitimate society' is built upon and then building the house known as 'Kingdom of Mistral' on top of themselves.

However, as it shrouded itself in darkness, the darkness of the human heart within everyone began to grow and blackening the members' souls. The power they achieved when they became the power _incognito_ corrupted them to a degree, prompting them to deal in what society decreed as a 'crime'. And thus, the first and biggest crime organization known to mankind in Written History is created.

It stood through the test of time to reach the present, the modern era, without losing much of its glory and now, here she was, dealing with elements from said gang... With Jaune Giovanna, her great-granduncle, declaring that he will become Passione's Don.

Looking at him as he stood with his hands on his hips, she saw the shadow of the devil who sired him. His declaration to stand on top of the criminal world reminded her of _him_ , of Jaune's father...

However, there was a difference that created a big gap between the two. DIO wanted to stand on top of the world to drive his heel to those who were weak and less fortunate. Jaune wanted to reach the top to stop the weak from being preyed on. It was like...

'Like Jonathan...' Her noble ancestor, Jaune's other father... She broke down then, "Hm... Hmhmhm..." A giggle came out of her closed lips that were stretched into a smile. "Hmhm... Hehehehe..." That fear she felt has been transformed into relief and she couldn't help but to laugh, "Ahahahahahahaa~!"

"M-mom?" She barely heard her daughter calling her.

"Hahahahahahahaha~!" Twisted as DIO was, his son was not him. A body was all that Jonathan Joestar had been when Dio's head took it over, but somehow, through what was nothing less than a miracle, his essence survived and created Jaune. "Haha~! Ihi~! Ihihihihii~!" She hugged her hurting stomach, unable to contain herself. Jaune Giovanna was indeed _their_ son, the dark and the light entwined together to create something so...

"Hey! Why are you laughing at him?! Are you mocking him?! Mocking his dream?! Mocking our cause?!"

"It's okay Blake." She heard him rebuke the cat faunus and she looked up to see that his expression was still as stoic and serene as before while Blake was glaring at her and was ready to fight. Like DIO, he was able to acquire a person's loyalty through his charisma yet like Jonathan did with Speedwagon, he considered her as an ally perhaps even a friend and not as a tool.

He was indeed both brothers combined into one. "I-I'm sorry..." She still felt some laugh threatening to break out of her throat and held it in. She straightened her back, cleared her throat and said with a wide smile still on her face, "It's just... remember what we talked about at the hotel about your origin? I just had a revelation that made me... really happy."

"Really?" His eyebrows rose up, "What is it if I may ask, Miss Summer?"

"Both Jonathan and DIO lives in you. And together they created something radiant, something beautiful..."

He blinked, his lips opened yet he didn't say anything or make any sound. He then closed his lips again and blinked... Yet he didn't say anything as he kept staring at her. It was then she realized that it's not that he didn't want to say anything, but he _couldn't_. "Hmhmhmhm~!" She couldn't help but to giggle at how at a loss for words he seemed.

Still, she had to stop herself from being rather silly. "Pheeew..." She took a deep breath, let it out for a few seconds, pushing her giddiness out of her system. "Regardless, your cause is just and I feel your honesty. I believe in you, Jaune."

He blinked again and then... She saw him blushing for a moment before he smiled, a smile far wider than she had seen him do before. "I...Thank you, Miss Summer."

"Blake..." Neo's voice pulled her attention along with everyone else's to the petite woman. She saw that the woman was now standing up as she said; "Is this true? You're really going for it for real now?"

"Yes." The cat faunus nodded. The glare that had been directed at her is gone when Blake looked at Neo "It has been quite a long time, but here we are now. How are you feeling, Neo?"

"Peachy, just peachy... But this guy...?" Neo pointed at Jaune, "I don't trust _him_. Not yet at least. But you do, so I'm going to trust you that trusts him." Then, the petite woman looked at Jaune up and down as if she was undressing him with her eyes before she extended her hand toward him, "Neopolitan. Don't have a last name."

Like the ice-cream _Nea_ politan? Then again, her color scheme did match the tri-colored ice-cream. Without missing a beat, Jaune reciprocated and shook her hand, "Jaune Giovanna." As serene as ever.

The petite woman then pulled her hand back as quickly as she extended it once she shook his hand; "If Blake trusts you, then we're cool. As long as you're _really_ planning to go after the Don, I'll follow you. My Stand, _**[Little Joys]**_ , is at your disposal."

"Little Joys, huh?" The petite woman turned to Yang at the sound of her daughter's voice, "Hybrid-type Stands are _very_ rare and your Little Joys are _very_ versatile." Her daughter turned to look at Blake and said; "She only failed to contain me because I goaded her good. Otherwise, she could've kept me in or beaten me once I broke out."

The cat faunus' eyebrows rose up as she nodded, "Hm. I suppose that explains it. Little Joys is an irreplaceable Stand within my cell. I was wary of what you were capable of because your Stand looks _very_ strong so I had Neo act as your warden."

"She only got to me because she was being racist toward Blake."

She immediately turned to Yang at that and saw her daughter's eyes widening. What was this now? Was her daughter really...? "Yang? What did she mean by that?" Her daughter winced and glanced around the room. She took a glance herself and saw that everyone's eyes were on her now and that was to be expected after what the petite girl claimed.

Then, she turned to Neo with burning red eyes and glowing golden hair, "You...!" Her daughter bared her teeth at the petite woman and summoned Speed Queen, both her daughter and her Stand were glaring at the petite woman as they clenched their fists, "I told you that I didn't mean any of that!"

"Alright, hold on a moment." Turning to the cat faunus, she saw her raising her right hand with the palm facing forward. Blake then approached her daughter, standing at eye-level due to their similar height with their breasts almost touching due to their proximity, "Let me ask you this one time... Are you racist towards faunus, Yang Xiao Long?"

"Hell no! I said a lot of despicable things about you when I fought her sure, but that was-!"

While her daughter was in the middle of talking, the cat faunus leaned in to Yang's neck, opened up her mouth, lolled out her tongue and took a lick off of Yang's sweat before pulling back as quick as she leaned in. "Hm... You were not lying." The faunus then turned to Neo, "Whatever it was that she said, I'm sure she only meant to lure you out."

"Yeah well you weren't there to hear them..." The petite woman's defiance only came out as a nigh-inaudible mumbling.

...Did she just taste her daughter's sweat to determine whether or not she was lying? Was that her Stand ability instead of the shadow that Yang told her about? Or was that a faunus trait?

"Regardless, Neo, Jaune, come with me, we will need to discuss what needs to be done next." The cat faunus turned back to the door... But then she stopped. Slowly, Blake turned her body fully to face her. When she saw her frowning, she knew that the faunus didn't want her and her daughter to come along. "...Miss Summer Rose, Yang Xiao Long, as this matter no longer concerns you, I believe-"

"No." She cut her off. She had a stake in this as well, she knew that much at least, "In a way, we are also connected to this, not just because we're Jaune's family... But because we're all Stand-users." Looking at the two Stand-using gang members, she said; "Listen, Passione has this ritual, this trial to give you a Stand, yes? Does it involve an arrowhead?"

She watched as the cat faunus' golden eyes widened before she turned to Neo, "Did you-?!"

"No!" The petite woman shook her head, her eyes wide with disbelief, "they really did figure that one out on their own, Blake! But..." She looked into Neo's dual-colored eyes as she began to swear, "How do you even know about the arrowhead?"

Another sigh escaped her lips, "Good grief... This is really a big problem..." This wasn't something that she could ignore, both the horrible agenda and the ritual involving _**[The Arrowhead]**_ in Passione needed to be stopped. "...But considering that we are outsiders, I suppose we have to be more careful in how we handle this..."

Considering the kind of influence and reach Passione possessed in Mistral and perhaps even to the criminal elements of the other three Kingdoms, she needed to find another angle to work this with. 'Jaune could be our way in... We can't exactly directly intervene in this particular situation, so perhaps we should-'

"Did you... did you just lick my sweat?"

Then again, this wasn't the place to have a conspiracy meeting. "Right then, Ms. Belladonna, do you have a place in mind where we can discuss this further? Trust me, you will want to hear what I know."

 **To be Continued...**

 **P.S.:** I am expecting some form of backlash from that Yang's 'provocation' scene. The things she said are meant to make Neo angry and that's all they are, words to provoke a reaction from Neo who is her enemy in that situation, but considering that I made _Yang_ say it instead of a generic bad guy, I am fully expecting some people to not be happy with that. Still, I'll stick by my decision as the scene is meant to show how Yang fights, with full-on trash talk that knows no boundaries between what's appropriate or not as long as it can give her an opening.

 **P.P.S:** Personal Opinion: I actually like the color pink on Giorno. I wish it was the one with the darker shade from one of the covers, but hot pink is also fine. Why do I like it? Because it differentiates him from the previous Part's protagonist, Josuke, who is often depicted with a really dark shade of blue in the anime because of how he wears a modified _gakuran_ (Japanese school uniform).

I think David Production wanted the Parts' protagonists to be distinguishable by their color palette and so they chose a lighter yet bolder color for Giorno's clothes instead of the dark blue he is often colored with in the manga and the video games.

Maybe due to the fact that David Production used the dark shade of blue that Giorno is often depicted with for Josuke, they chose to go a different route with Giorno. Personally, I think it goes well with his blonde hair and it makes him even more distinct, color pallette wise, to the other Passione members.

Also, with Giorno using the color pink, it would also deepen both the similarity and contrast between him and _**[The Devil]**_ who I'm hoping will retain his color palette of pink, purple/blue and black from the manga and video games.


End file.
